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YALE 

LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 

BY 

HENRY  WARD  BEECHER. 

DELIVERED  BEFORE  THE  THEOLOGICAL  DEPARTMENT  OF  YALE 
COLLEGE,  NEW  HAVEN,  CONN.,  IN  THE  REGULAR  COURSE 
OF  THE  "  LYMAN  BEECHER  LECTURESHIP 
ON  PREACHING." 

F1B8T,  SECOND,  AND  THIRD  SERIES. 
STSree  Vtilumtn  in  One, 


BOSTON: 

^be  pilgrim  press 

CHICAGO. 


/ 


FIRST  SERIES. 
Copyright  by  J.  B.  Ford  &  Co.  in  18785 
by  William  C.  Bsecher  in  1900. 

SECOND  SERIES. 
Copyright  by  J.  B.  Ford  &  Co.  in  1873: 
by  William  C.  Bbecher  in  1901. 

THIRD  SERIES. 
Copyright  by  J.  B.  Ford  &  Co.  in  1874; 
by  William  C.  Beechiir  in  1902. 


5y^ 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 

FIRST  SERIES. 
THE  PEESONAL  ELEMENTS 

WHICH  BEAR  AI^  IMPORTANT  RELATION  TO  PREACHING. 


35973^ 


LETTEE. 


Theological  Department,  Yale  College, 
Feb."  23,  1872. 

Rev.  Henry  Ward  Beecher. 

Dear  Sir,  —  Allow  us  to  express  our  high  estimation  of  the 
Lectures  on  Preaching  given  by  you  in  the  Marquand  Chapel  to 
the  students  of  this  Department.  We  value  them  for  the  views 
which  they  give  of  eloquence  in  general,  and  of  that  eloquence 
in  particular  which  seeks  to  save  men  by  the  exposition  and  appli- 
cation of  the  gospel.  We  value  them  for  their  stimulating  and 
inspiring  effect  on  the  hearers,  and  for  the  high  ideal  which  they 
hold  up  before  ministers  and  students  for  the  ministry.  We  can- 
not but  hope  .that  in  some  form  of  publication  they  will  have  a 
wider  usefulness,  not  only  among  students  preparing  for  the  min- 
istry, but  among  preachers  of  the  gospel  in  all  the  churches.  It 
is  with  great  satisfaction  that  we  look  forward  to  tne  enjoyment 
of  other  courses  from  you  in  successive  years. 

The  Lyman  Beecher  Lectureship  which  was  founded  by  your 
^:>arishioner,  Mr.  Sage,  and  of  which*  you  are  so  fitly  the  incum- 
bent, promises  to  exceed  in  usefulness  our  highest  expectations. 
Yours  truly, 

LEONARD  BACON, 
{Lecturer  on  Church  Polity ^  etc.) 

SAMUEL  HARRIS, 
(Prof,  of  Systematic  Theology.) 
GEORGE  E.  DAY, 
{Prof,  of  Hehreio  and  Biblical  Theology,) 
JAMES  M.  HOPPIN, 
(P\of  of  Homiletics  and  the  Pastoral  Charge.) 
GEORGE  P.  FISHER, 
{Prof  of  Ecclesiastical  History.) 
TIMOTHY  DWIGHT, 
(Prof,  of  Sacred  Literature.) 


/ 


N  1871,  Mr.  Henry  W.  Sage,  of  Brooklyn, 
New  York,  contributed  the  funds  necessary 
to  found  a  Lectureship  on  Preaching  in  the 
Divinity  School  at  Yale  College,  New  Haven, 
Conn.  In  honor  of  my  father,  it  was  styled  the  Lyman 
Beecher  Lectukeship  on  Preaching.  As  this  title 
implies,  it  was  the  design  of  the  donor  and  of  the 
Theological  Faculty  to  secure  a  more  perfect  prepara- 
tion of  young  men  for  preaching,  as  the  highest  act 
of  the  Christian  ministry,  by  providing  for  them,  in 
addition  to  their  general  and  professional  studies,  a 
course  of  practical  instruction  in  the  art  of  preaching, 
to  be  given  by  those  actively  engaged  in  the  practice 
of  it.  At  the  request  of  both  the  Founder  and  the 
Theological  Faculty,  I  consented  to  serve  as  Lecturer 
in  this  course  for  three  consecutive  years. 

Since  each  class,  however,  passes  through  a  three- 
years'  course,  it  was  deemed  desirable  that  the  lectures 


vi 


PREFACE. 


should  not  be  condensed  into  a  single  course  of  twelve, 
to  be  repeated  in  substance  each  year,  but  that  they 
should  be  so  enlarged  and  divided  as  to  give  to  each 
year  its  separate  and  distinct  topics.  I  have  therefore 
considered  in  this,  the  first  year,  chiefly  the  personal 
elements  which  bear  an  important  relation  to  preaching. 

The  second  year  will  deal  with  the  auxiliary  forces 
and  external  implements  by  which  the  preacher  pre- 
pares the  way  for  the  sermon,  or  gathers  up  its  fruit: 
the  conduct  of  public  service,  of  prayer-meetings,  and 
of  social  gatherings  of  every  kind ;  the  function  of 
music  in  public  worship ;  the  methods  of  dealing  with 
new  fields  of  labor;  the  direction  of  church- work  in 
old  communities,  —  in  short,  a  consideration  of  social 
and  religious  machinery  as  connected  with  preaching. 

I  purpose  to  discuss  during  the  third  year  the 
method  of  using  Christian  doctrines,  in  their  relations 
to  individual  dispositions  and  to  the  wants  of  commu- 
nities. 

It  will  therefore  be  seen  that  this  volume  contains 
only  one  division  of  the  whole  course  of  lectures. 

The  discourses  here  given  were  wholly  unwTitten, 
and  were  familiar  conversational  addresses,  rather 
than  elaborate  speeches.  The  phonographic  report  of 
the  lecture  on  Sermon-Making,"  when  prepared  for 
the  press,  unaccountably  disappeared,  and  was  never 
regained.    I  was  obliged  to  dictate  a  new  lecture  ixi 


PREFACE. 


vii 


the  best  way  I  could.  Those  who  heard  the  course 
may  by  this  circumstance  explain  the  difference  be- 
tween what  they  read  and  what  they  remember  to 
have  heard. 

HENRY  WARD  BEECHER. 


Brooklyn,  N.  Y.,  June,  1872. 


CONTENTS.  xi 

Vll.   Rhetorical  Illustrations   154 

The  Nature  of  Illustration   154 

Reasons  for  Illustrations  in  Preaching     .       .       .  155 

They  assist  Argument        ......  157 

They  help  Hearers  to  remember      ....  159 

They  stimulate  Imagination        .       ,       .       .       .  159 

The  Art  of  resting  Audiences          .       .       .       .  160 

Illustrations  provide  for  Various  Hearers    .       .  .162 

Modes  of  presenting  Argument       .       .       .       .  164 

Illustrations  bridge  Difficult  Places     .       .       .       .  165 

They  educate  the  People   168 

Necessity  of  Variety                                              .  169 

Homely  Illustrations   170 

Illustrations  must  be  Apt   172 

How  to  get  Information   173 

Illustrations  must  be  Prompt   174 

The  Habit  of  Illustrating   174 

Questions  and  Answers   176 

,  VIII.  Health,  as  Related  to  Preaching     .      .      .  181 

What  is  Health  ?  .       .   183 

Health  and  Thought   185 

Health  in  Speaking   .186 

Popular  Orators   187 

Thrust-Power   188 

Health  as  a  Cheering  Influence        ....  189 

Healthful  Views  of  Christianit)^  .....  190 

Health  as  a  Sweetener  of  Work       .       .       .       .  192 

Practical  Hints   193 

Muscular  Strength  not  Enough       .       .       .       .  194 

The  Art  of  Eating   194 

Quantity  of  Sleep    .       .       .       .       .       ,       .  197 

Badly  Regulated  Work   198 

Sleep  after  Work   201 

Questions  and  Answers   203 

IX.  Sermon-Making  .      .      /   207 

>   The  Discourses  of  Jesus       ......  207 

Mode  of  the  Apostles   208 

Characteristics  of  Modern  Preaching    ....  208 


xii  CONTENTS. 

Laborioiisness  of  the  Ministry   209 

Preparation  of  the  Sermon   211 

Advantages  and  Dangers  of  Written  Sermons  .  .  212 
Advantages  of  Unw^ritten  Discourse     .       .       .  .213 

Points  to  be  guarded  in  Extempore  Preaching  .       .  216 

Ideal  Sermonizing   218 

General  Variety  of  Sermon- Plans     ....  218 

The  Natural  Method   222 

Suggestive  Preaching   223 

V  Expository  Preaching   224 

Great  Sermons   226 

Style   228 

General  Hints  —  Professional  Manners     .       .       .  231 

Professional  Association       .       .       .       .       .       .  233 

Length  of  Sermons   234 

Trust  in  Audiences   234 

Summary   235 

Questions  and  Answers   236 

X.   Love,  the  Central  Element  of  the  Christian  Min- 
istry      .      .       .   238 

What  is  Love  ?   239 

Love,  the  Central  Power  of  the  Ministry     .       .       .  241 

Love,  not  mere  Good-nature   243 

Love  of  the  Work   245 

The  Healthfulness  of  Benevolence   ....  246 

Love,  a  Power-Giving  Element   248 

The  Sustaining  Power  of  Love   253 

Love,  the  Key-Note  of  Pulpit-Work    ....  254 

Love  makes  a  Free  Preacher   255 

Questions  and  Answers   259 


CONTENTS.       fr-r  l^' 


Lectdrb  Pagb 

I.  What  is  Preaching  ?  1 

The  Scope  of  Preaching  2 

The  Pauline  Method  6 

A  Bit  of  Experience        ......  10 

The  Power  of  Personal  Christian  Vitality      .       .       .  (|S) 

Sermons  and  Liturgies  14 

Geneual  Advantages  of  Directness  .  .  .  .17 
Man- Building,  the  Preacher's  Business  .  .  .  19 
Questions  and  Answers        .       .       .       ...  .21 

II.  Qualifications  of  the  Preacher    ....  29 

Show-Sermons      .       .       .       .       .       .       .  .31 

Sympathy  with  Men        ......  33^ 

Personal  Character  of  the  Preacher       ....  ©7/ 

Fertility  in  Subjects   Qo) 

Style   42 

Qualifications  for  the  Profession        ....  43 

Questions  and  Answers   49 

III.   The  Personal  Element  in  Oratory       ...  53 

Different  Classes  of  Hearers  54 

How  to  meet  Differing  Minds  58 

An  Easy  Danger  59 

Demands  of  Variety  upon  the  Preacher  ...  61 
How  to  use  One's  own  Special  Forces    .       .       .  .62 

Self-Training  an  Education  65 

Preaching  the  Preacher's  whole  Business      .       .  .67 
External  Hindrances        ......  69 

Self-Consciousness        .......  72 

a  * 


X 


CONTENTS. 


Nearness  to  the  Audience  72 

Questions  and  Answers        .       .       ,       ,       ,  .74 

IV.  The  Study  of  Human  Nature  76 

Necessities  of  the  Future   77 

Relation  of  Bible  Truth  to  Christianity  in  the  World  78 

(^^--^xample  of  the  Apostles   80 

Weakness  of  Gospel- Preaching  in  the  Past       .       .  82 

Special  Reasons  for  studying  Human  Nature        .       .  82 

The  World's  Advancement  in  Thought     ...  87 

How  to  study  Human  Nature   90 

Metaphysical  Studies   93 

Phrenology  as  a  Convenient  Basis        .       .       .  .93 

Social  Habits  ,.  97 

Questions  and  Answers   99 

V.  The  Psychological  Working-Elements  .      .      .  104 

Circumstances  alter  Cases  104 

Writing  and  Extemporizing  .  .  .  .  .  105 
Variations  of  Denominational  Service  .  .  .  .106 
The  Power  of  Imagination        ...  .109 

Emotion  118 

Enthusiasm  121 

Faith  122 

^  Questions  and  Answers  125 

J    VI.   Rhetorical  Drill  and  General  Training    .      .  128 

The  Voice  .       .       .  129 

Various  Vocal  Elements  .       .       .       .       .       .  130 

Necessity  of  Drill  133 

Health  of  the  Voice  135 

Bodily  Carriage  —  Posture  136 

Gesture  136 

Seminary  Training     .       .       .       .       .       .  .137 

Study  of  the  Bible  138 

Theology    .    '  140 

A  Small  Parish  at  First  -  141 

An  Early  Experience  in  the  West       .       .       .  .143 

General  Hints        .       .       .       .       .       .       .  147 

Questions  and  Answers       .       .       .       .       .  .148 


LeCTUEES  O]^  PEEACHma 


I. 

WHAT  IS  PEEACHING? 

January  31,  1872. 


DO  not  propose,  in  the  few  lectures  which 
I  shall  give  in  this  place,  and  which  hardly 
deserve  to  be  dignified  by  the  name  of  lec- 
tures, to  make  them  other  than  familiar 


conversations. 

This  Lectureship  is  not  to  be  confounded  with  a  regu- 
lar Professorship  of  pastoral  theology.  Such  a  profes- 
o  ;:rship  is  already  founded  in  your  Divinity  School,  and 
amply  and  ably  served.  This  lectureship  is  an  auxiliary 
to  it;  but  even  that  only  in  one  regard,  namely,  the^ 
element  of  Preaching. 

When  one  takes  charge  of  a  parish  he  assumes  the 
care  of  several  departments,  w^hich,  though  intimately 
related,  are  yet  in  nature  quite  distinct.  In  his  social 
relations,  visiting  from  house  to  house,  he  is  a  pastor. 
In  the  management  of  the  affairs  of  the  church,  the  ap- 
pointment and  conduct  of  the  subordinate  meetings,  he 
is  an  administrator,  or  more  like  what  in  civil  govern- 
ment is  termed  an  executive.  But  besides  this,  he  is  to 
1  ▲ 


2 


LECTUKES  ON  PREACHING. 


teach  and  inspire  men  from  the  platform  or  pulpit ;  and 
that  is  wliat  we  mean  distinctively  by  Preaching.  The 
design  of  this  lectureship  i§  not  to  supersede  the  instruc- 
tions given  already  by  the  incumbent  of  the  chair  of 
Pastoral  Theology,  but  to  intensify  one  portion  of  his 
teachings  by  bringing  in  from  the  field  those  who  are 
actively  engaged  in  the  work  of  preaching,  that  you 
may  derive  from  them  the  results  of  their  observation 
and  experience.  For  I  believe  that  it  is  the  wish  and 
purpose  of  this  Institution  to  send  out  preachers,  —  not 
merely  good  managers,  good  pastors,  but  good  preachers. 

THE  SCOPE  OF  PREACHING. 

A  preacher  is  a  teacher ;  but  he  is  more.  A  teacher 
brings  before  men  a  given  view,  or  a  department  of  truth. 
He  expends  his  force  upon  facts  or  ideas.  But  a  preacher 
assumes  or  proves  facts  and  truths  as  a  vehicle  through 
which  he  may  bring  his  spirit  to  bear  upon  men.  A 
preacher  looks  upon  truth  from  the  constructive  point 
of  view.  He  looks  beyond  mere  knowledge  to  the  char- 
acter which  that  knowledge  is  to  form.  It  is  not  enough 
that  men  shall  know.  They  must  he.  Every  stroke  of 
his  brush  must  bring  out  some  element  of  the  likeness 
to  Christ  which  he  is  seeking  to  produce.  He  is  an  artist, 
—  not  of  forms  and  matter,  but  of  the  soul.  Every 
sermon  is  like  the  stroke  of  Michael  Angelo's  cliisel, 
and  the  hidden  figure  emerges  at  every  blow.  A 
teacher  has  doubtless  an  ulterior  reference  to  practical 
results  ;  but  the  preacher,  not  indifferent  to  remote  and 
indirect  results,  aims  at  the  immediate.  "  Now  !  Noiu  !  " 
is  his  inspiration.  "  Cease  to  do  evil,  at  once.  Turn  to- 
ward good  immediately.    Add  strength  to  every  excel- 


WHAT  IS  PREACHING  ? 


3 


lence,  and  virtue  to  virtue,  iiow  and  continually."  The 
eflect  of  his  speech  upon  the  souls  of  men  is  his  objec- 
tive. It  is  this  moral  fruit  in  men's  souls  for  which  he 
plants  his  truth,  as  so  much  seed. 

Change  the  illustration  and  adopt  the  architectural 
figure  so  much  employed  by  the  Apostle  Paul,  of  rearing 
a  building.  When  a  master-builder  goes  to  the  forest 
for  material,  he  does  not  take  trees  of  any  and  every 
kind,  and  then  put  them  together  at  haphazard,  or  so 
as  to  accommodate  his  building  to  the  form  of  the  trees. 
The  trees  must  conform  to  the  house  that  is  to  be.  The 
builder  carries  in  his  eye  the  future  house,  and  selects 
his  trees  from  the  wood  by  the  known  wants  of  the 
house  ;  this  one  for  a  sill,  that  one  for  a  corner-post, 
others  for  beams,  and  so  on.  Thus  all  truths,  all  sermons, 
are  merely  subordinate  material  and  instruments  ;  the 
preacher's  real  end  is  to  be  found  in  the  soul-building 
that  is  going  on.  He  is  an  artist  of  living  forms,  of  in- 
visible colors ;  an  architect  of  a  house  not  built  with 
hands  —  Jesus  Christ,  the  foundation. 

There  is  another  element  which  discriminates  a  preach- 
er from  a  teacher.  Moral  truths  may  become  personal, 
as  physical  or  scientific  truths  cannot.  Number,  weight, 
dimension,  have  no  relation  to  a  speaker's  personal  feel- 
ings or  those  of  his  hearers  ;  but  hope,  fear,  joy,  love, 
faith,  have.  A  preacher  is  in  some  degree  a  reproduction 
of  the  truth  in  personal  form.  The  truth  must  exist  in 
him  as  a  living  experience,  a  glowing  enthusiasm,  an  in- 
tense reality.  The  Word  of  God  in  the  Book  is  a  dead 
letter.  It  is  paper,  type,  and  ink.  In  the  preacher 
that  word  becomes  again  as  it  was  when  first  spoken 
by  prophet,  priest,  or  apostle.    It  springs  up  in  him 


4 


LECTUKES  ON  PREACHING. 


as  if  it  were  first  kindled  in  his  heart,  and  he  were 
moved  by  the  Holy  Ghost  to  give  it  forth.  He  is  so 
moved. 

The  preacher  is  one  who  is  aiming  directly  at  the 
ennobling  of  his  hearer.  He  seeks  to  do  this  partly  by 
the  use  of  truth  existing  as  a  philosophy  or  by  ordinary 
facts,  but  yet  more  by  giving  to  such  truth  the  glow  and 
color  and  intensity  which  are  derived  from  his  own  soul. 
If  one  may  so  say,  he  digests  the  truth  and  makes  it 
personal,  and  then  brings  his  own  being  to  bear  upon 
that  of  his  hearers.  All  true  preaching  bears  the  impress 
of  the  nature  of  the  preacher.  "  Christ  in  you."  The 
truth  is  that  which  is  represented  in  the  historical 
Jesus  Christ,  but  it  is  that  truth  in  yoiil'  or  as  it  exists 
in  each  man's  distinctive  personality,  which  must  make 
it  a  living  force. 

Of  course,  in  such  a  view,  all  preaching  is  to  find  its 
criterion  of  merit  in  the  work  performed  in  men's  hearts, 
and  not  in  any  ideal  excellence  of  the  sermon.  The 
sermon  is  only  a  tool,  and  the  work  which  is  accom- 
plished by  it  is  to  measure  its  value.  No  man  is  to 
pteach  for  the  sake  of  the  sermon,  nor  for  the  sake  of 
"  the  truth,"  nor  for  the  sake  of  any  system  of  truth  "  ; 
but  for  the  sake  of  the  hearts  and  lives  of  the  men  that 
listen  to  his  words.  How  aimlessly  does  he  preach 
who  has  no  thought  of  men,  but  who  sympathizes  only 
with  his  own  cogitations!  How  yet  more  foolish  is 
he  who  has  a  certain  round  of  topics  which  he  calls 
his  system,"  and  which  he  serves  out  almost  me- 
chanically to  meet  his  contract  with  the  society  which 
employs  him  ! 

It  is  hardly  an  imaginary  case  to  describe  one  as  ap- 


WHAT  IS  PKEACHING  ? 


5 


proacliing  the  Sabbath  day  somewhat  in  this  way:  ''O 
dear  me,  I  have  got  to  preach !  I  have  beat  out  pretty 
much  all  there  is  in  that  straw,  and  I  wonder  what  I 
shall  preach  on  next " ;  and  so  the  man  takes  the  Bible 
and  commences  to  turn  over  the  leaves,  hoping  that  he 
will  hit  something.  He  looks  up  and  down,  and  turns 
forward  and  backward,  and  finally  he  does  see  a  light, 
and  he  says,  I  can  make  something  interesting  from 
that."  Interesting,  why  ?  For  what  purpose  ?  What, 
under  heaven,  but  that  he  is  a  salaried  officer  expected 
to  preach  twice  on  Sunday,  and  to  lecture  or  hold  the 
prayer-meeting  in  the  middle  of  the  week;  and  the 
time  has  come  round  when,  like  a  clock,  it  is  his  busi- 
ness to  strike,  and  so  he  does  strike,  just  as  ignorantly 
as  the  hammer  strikes  upon  the  bell !  He  is  following 
out  no  intelligent  plan.  He  is  a  perfunctory  preacher, 
doing  a  duty  because  appointed  to  that  duty. 

What  would  you  think  of  a  physician  in  the  house- 
hold who  has  been  called  to  minister  to  a  sick  member 
of  some  family,  and  who  says,  "  Well,  I  will  leave  some- 
thing or  other  ;  I  don't  know  ;  what  shall  I  leave  ?  "  and 
he  looks  in  his  saddle-bags  to  see  what  he  has  yet  got 
the  most  of,  and  prescribes  it  with  no  directions ;  the 
father,  mother,  and  children  may  all  take  a  little,  and 
the  servants  may  have  the  rest.  Another  physician, 
and  a  true  one,  comes,  and  the  mother  says,  "  Doctor, 
I  have  called  you  in  to  prescribe  for  my  child."  He 
sits  down  and  studies  the  child's  symptoms;  traces 
theni  back  to  the  supposed  cause ;  reflects  how  he  shall 
hit  that  case,  what  remedial  agents  are  supposed  to  be 
effective,  what  shall  be  the  form  of  administration,  how 
often;  he  considers  the  child's  temperament  and  age, 


6 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


and  adapts  himself  to  the  special  necessity  of  the  iu^ 
dividual  case. 

Do  you  suppose  a  man  can  deal  with  so  subtile  a  thing 
as  the  human  soul  without  any  thought,  skill,  sagacity 
in  adaptation  ;  can  take  a  sermon  and  throw  its  contents 
over  the  congregation,  and  let  everybody  pick  out  of  it 
what  he  can  find,  —  each  man  left  to  take  his  share  ? 
Can  this  be  done  in  a  ministry  and  accomplish  any 
good  ?  Yes,  in  God's  providence,  some  good  is  done 
even  in  this  way.  Paul  said  that  the  "  foolishness  of 
preaching"  would  do  a  great  deal  of  good;  and  there 
is  so  much  foolish  preaching  that  it  would  be  strange 
if  some  of  it  did  not  do  some  good,  here  or  there. 

THE  PAULINE  METHOD. 

But  preaching  must  come  back  to  what  it  was  in  the 
apostolic  times.  It  must  come  back  to  the  conditions 
under  which  those  men  were  so  eminent  for  their  suc- 
cess in  winning  souls.  If  you  want  to  be  a  preacher  to 
your  fellows,  you  must  become  a  ''fisher  of  men''  — your 
business  is  to  catch  them.  The  preacher's  task  is  first 
to  arouse ;  secondly,  on  that  aroused  moral  condition 
to  build,  and  continue  building  until  he  has  com- 
pleted the  whole.  The  thing  that  a  preacher  aims  at 
all  the  while  is  reconstructed  manhood,  a  nobler  idea  in 
his  congregation  of  how  people  ought  to  live  and  what 
they  ought  to  be.  To  be  sure,  you  will  find  in  the  New 
Testament  that  there  is  a  great  deal  more  in  the  preach- 
ing of  the  Apostles  than  this.  There  was  a  great  deal 
that  was  incidental ;  a  great  deal  that  belonged  to  the 
extrication  of  Christians  from  the  Jewish  thraldom  ;  a 
great  deal  that  belonged  to  the  peculiarities  of  the  time, 


WHAT  IS  PREACHING? 


7 


and  which  can  be  transferred  to  our  time  by  adapting, 
not  adopting.  If  you  will  look  through  the  New  Tes- 
tament with  your  eye  on  that  point,  you  will  find  that 
Paul  —  the  greatest  of  all  preachers,  I  take  it  —  aimed 
all  the  way  through,  and  certainly  Peter,  in  his  famous 
sermon  on  the  day  of  Pentecost,  aimed,  at  reconstructed 
manhood.  Consider  attentively  Paul's  idea  of  the  woik 
of  Christian  ministers,  as  given  in  his  letter  to  the 
Ephesian  assembly  of  Christians  (Eph.  iv.  11-16,  in- 
clusive). The  end.  Manhood.  The  means,  Truth.  The 
spirit.  Love.  The  ideal,  Christ.  The  inspiration,  the 
living  Spirit  of  God  ! 

This  being  the  aim  of  true  preaching,  there  is  but 
one  question  more  to  be  added ;  that  is,  by  what  in- 
strument, by  what  influence,  are  you  to  reach  it  ?  The 
ideal  of  a  true  Christian  preacher  —  I  do  not  mean  that 
no  man  is  a  Christian  preacher  who  does  not  live  up  to 
this  ideal,  for  we  are  all  imperfect,  but  the  id.eal  toward 
which  every  man  should  strive  —  is  this,  to  take  the 
great  truths  of  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ's  teachings,  and 
the  love  of  God  to  the  human  race,  and  make  them 
a  part  of  his  own  personal  experience,  so  that  when  he 
speaks  to  men  it  shall  not  be  he  alone  that  speaks,  but 
God  in  him.  To  quote  texts  to  men  is  good  for  some 
purposes ;  but  that  is  not  preaching.  If  it  were,  then 
you  w^ould  better  read  the  Bible  altogether,  witliout 
note  or  comment,  to  men.  The  reason  why  reading  the 
truths  that  are  just  as  plainly  stated  there  has  some- 
times so  much  less  effect  than  stating  them  in  your 
ow^n  way,  is  that  the  truth  will  gain  a  force  w^hen  it 
becomes  a  part  of  you  that  it  would  not  have  when 
merely  read  as  a  text. 


8 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


Look,  for  instance,  at  what  Paul  did  when  he 
preached.  He  was  consumed  with  the  love  of  Christ. 
He  was  made  restless  with  the  intensity  of  his  feeling ; 
and  wherever  he  went  he  did  not  preach  Christ  as  John 
would.  He  did  not  preach  Christ  as  Peter  would.  He 
preached  Christ  as  Christ  had  been  revealed  to  him  and 
in  him.  It  was  the  Pauline  conception  of  the  Lord  Jesus 
Christ  that  Paul  preached. 

You  may  say  that  Christ  is  one  and  the  same,  and 
w^hoever  preaches  him,  it  must  be  substantially  the 
same  thing.  You  might  just  as  well  say  that  the  sun 
is  one  and  the  same,  and  that  therefore  whatever  flower 
shows  the  sun's  work  must  look  the  same ;  but  when 
you  look  at  the  flowers  you  will  see  some  red,  some 
blue,  some  yellow,  some  humble,  some  high,  some 
branching.  Endless  is  the  work  the  sun  creates ;  but 
every  one  of  the  things  which  it  creates,  reflects  its 
power  and  teaches  something  about  it.  It  takes  the 
experience  of  a  thousand  men  brought  into  one  ideal, 
to  make  up  the  conception  of  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ. 
You  may  read  what  Paul  wrote  about  him,  you  may 
read  what  was  written  by  John  or  Peter  or  James  or 
Matthew,  and  the  impression  produced  by  either  of 
these  is  fragmentary ;  it  is  presenting  some  things  out 
of  the  infinite ;  and  it  cannot  produce  a  conception  of 
the  infinite  in  the  minds  of  men. 

When  under  the  gospel  men  are  made  preachers,  God 
works  in  them  a  saving  knowledge  of  himself,  gives 
them  a  sense  of  the  sympathy  between  God  and  man, 
of  the  spiritual  love  which  appeals  from  the  infinite  to 
the  mortal;  and  then  says  to  them,  "Take  this  reve- 
lation of  Jesus  Christ  in  you,  and  go  out  and  preach 


WHAT  IS  PKEACHING  ? 


9 


it."  Tell  what  God  has  done  for  your  soul,  not  in  a 
technical  way,  but  in  a  large  way ;  take  the  truth  re- 
vealed in  you,  and  according  to  the  structure  of  your 
understanding,  your  emotive  affections,  the  sentiments 
of  your  own  soul,  filled  with  the  power  of  the  Holy 
Ghost,  go  and  preach  to  men  for  the  sake  of  making 
them  know  the  love  of  Christ  Jesus,  and  you  will  have 
a  power  in  you  to  make  that  preaching  effective.  There 
is  a  place  for  knowledge,  purely  as  such ;  but  that 
which  you  w^ant  to  effect  is,  from  the  consciousness  of 
your  own  nature  to  describe  the  love  of  God,  not  in  the 
abstract  conception,  but-  experimentally,  just  as  it  has 
been  felt  by  you,  so  as  to  produce  a  longing  for  the 
love  of  God  in  your  hearers.  It  will  be  imperfect.  There 
are  no  perfect  preachers  in  the  world.  The  only  perfect 
men  in  this  world  are  the  Doctors  of  Divinity,  who 
teach  systematic  theology.  They  know  everything,  all 
of  it,  and  I  envy  them.  But  men  that  preach  take  only 
so  much  of  the  truth  as  they  can  hold,  and,  generally 
speaking,  preachers  don't  hold  a  great  deal.  They  ar^ 
all  partialists. 

One  of  the  most  beautiful  things  I  read  in  the  life  of 
Paul  is  in  the  13th  chapter  of  1st  Corinthians,  in  which, 
when  he  has  expressed  his  raptures  in  giving  the  ever- 
lasting exposition  of  love,  he  says :  "  After  all,  we  are 
only  fragmentary  creatures  ;  we  only  see  bits  and  spots  ; 
now^  w^e  see  through  a  glass  darkly,  but  then  we  shall 
see  face  to  face  ;  now  I  know  in  part,  I  know  only 
portions  of  things,  but  then  shall  I  know  as  I  am 
known."  He  felt  how  empty  he  was  ;  and  yet  what  a 
creature  was  that  Paul!  What  a  magnificent  moving 
spirit  the  man  was !  But  when  he  spoke  about  him- 
1* 


10 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


self  in  that  epistle,  written  late  in  his  life,  he  felt  that  he 
was  not  a  full  man  ;  that  he  could  not  represent  or  re- 
flect the  whole  of  the  Lord  J esus  Christ.  No  man  can. 
No  hundred  men  can.  It  is  your  office  as  preachers  to 
take  so  much  of  the  truth  of  Christ  Jesus  as  has  be- 
come digested  and  assimilated  into  your  own  spiritual 
life,  and  with  that,  strike !  with  that,  flash !  with  that, 
burn  men ! 

A  BIT  OF  EXPERIENCE. 

I  remember  the  first  sermon  I  ever  preached.  I  had 
preached  a  good  many  sermons  before,  too.  But  I  re- 
member the  first  real-  one.  I  had  preached  a  good 
while  as  I  had  used  my  gun.  1  used  to  go  out  hunting 
by  myself,  and  1  had  great  success  in  firing  off  my  gun; 
and  the  game  enjoyed  it  as  much  as  I  did,  for  I  never 
hit  them  or  hurt  them.  I  fired  off*  my  gun  as  I  see 
hundreds  of  men  firing  off"  their  sermons.  I  loaded  it, 
and  bang! — there  was  a  smoke,  a  report,  but  nothing 
fell ;  and  so  it  was  again  and  again.  I  recollect  one 
day  in  the  fields  my  father  pointed  out  a  little  red 
squirrel,  and  said  to  me,  Henry,  would  you  like  to 
shoot  him  ?"  I  trembled  all  over,  but  I  said,  "  Yes." 
He  got  down  on  his  knee,  put  the  gun  across  a  rail, 
and  said,  "  Henry,  keep  perfectly  cool,  perfectly  cool ; 
take  aim."  And  I  did,  and  I  fired,  and  over  went  the 
squirrel,  and  he  did  n't  run  away  either.  That  was 
the  first  thing  I  ever  hit  ;  and  I  felt  an  inch  taller, 
as  a  boy  that  had  killed  a  squirrel,  and  knew  how  to 
aim  a  gun. 

I  had  preached  two  years  and  a  half  at  Lawrence- 
burg,  in  Indiana,  (and  some  sporadic  sermons  before 
that,)  when  I  went  to  Indianapolis.    While  there  I  was 


WHAT  IS  PREACHING  ? 


11 


very  much  discontented.  I  had  been  discontented  for 
two  years.  I  had  expected  that  there  would  be  a 
general  public  interest,  and  especially  in  the  week 
before  the  communion  season.  In  the  West  we  had 
protracted  meetings,  and  the  people  would  come  up  to 
a  high  point  of  feeling;  but  I  never  could  get  them 
beyond  that.  They  would  come  down  again,  and  there 
would  be  no  conversions.  I  sent  for  Dr.  Stowe  to  come 
down  and  help  me ;  but  he  would  not  come,  for  he 
thought  it  better  for  me  to  bear  the  yoke  myself. 
When  I  had  lived  at  Indianapolis  the  first  year,  I  said : 
There  was  a  reason  why  when  the  apostles  preached 
they  succeeded,  and  I  will  find  it  out  if  it  is  to  be  found 
out."  I  took  every  single  instance  in  the  Eecord,  where 
I  could  find  one  of  their  sermons,  and  analyzed  it  and 
asked  myself :  "  What  were  the  circumstances  ?  who 
were  the  people  ?  what  did  he  do  ? "  and  I  studied  the 
sermons  until  I  got  this  idea :  That  the  apostles  were  ' 
accustomed  first  to  feel  for  a  ground  on  which  the  peo- 
ple and  they  stood  together ;  a  common  ground  where 
they  could  meet.  Then  they  heaped  up  a  large  number 
of  the  particulars  of  knowledge  that  belonged  to  every- 
body ;  and  when  they  had  got  that  knowledge,  which 
everybody  would  admit,  placed  in  a  proper  form  before 
their  minds,  then  they  brought  it  to  bear  upon  them 
wdth  all  their  excited  heart  and  feeling.  That  was  the 
first  definite  idea  of  taking  aim  that  I  had  in  my  mind. 

Now,"  said  I,  I  will  make  a  sermon  so."  I  re- 
member it  just  as  well  as  if  it  were  yesterday.  First, 
I  sketched  out  the  things  we  all  know.  "  You  all  know 
you  are  living  in  a  world  perishing  under  your  feet. 
You  all  know  that  time  is  extremely  uncertain ;  that 


12 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


you  cannot  tell  whether  you  will  live  another  month 
or  week.  You  all  know  that  your  destiny,  in  the  life 
that  is  to  come,  depends  upon  the  character  you  are 
forming  in  this  life  " ;  and  in  that  way  I  went  on  with 
my  You  all  knows,"  until  I  had  about  forty  of  them. 
When  I  had  got  through  that,  I  turned  round  and 
brought  it  to  bear  upon  them  with  all  my  might ;  and 
there  were  seventeen  men  awakened  under  that  ser- 
mon. I  never  felt  so  triumphant  in  my  life.  I  cried 
all  the  way  home.  I  said  to  myself:  ''Now  I  know 
how  to  preach." 

I  could  not  make  another  sermon  for  a  month  that 
was  good  for  anything,  I  had  used  all  my  powder 
and  shot  on  that  one.  But,  for  the  first  time  in  my 
life,  I  had  got  the  idea  of  taking  aim.  I  soon  added  to 
it  the  idea  of  analyzing  the  people  I  was  preaching  to, 
and  so  taking  aim  for  specialties.  Of  course  that  came 
gradually  and  later,  witli  growing  knowledge  and  expe- 
rience. 

Young  man,  when  you  get  a  parish,  don't  be  dis- 
couraged for  the  first  ten  years,  no  matter  how  poor 
your  work.  There  is  no  trade  that  requires  so  long  an 
apprenticeship  as  preaching ;  and  yet  there  is  no  trade 
to  which  they  admit  a  man  so  soon,  or  in  which  he 
learns  so  fast.  It  is  easier  to  study  law  and  become  a 
successful  practitioner,  it  is  easier  to  study  medicine 
and  become  a  successful  practitioner,  than  it  is  to 
study  the  human  soul  all  through,  —  to  know  its  living 
forms,  and  to  know  the  way  of  talking  to  it,  and 
coming  into  sympathy  with  it.  To  make  the  truths  of 
God  and  the  Divine  influences  a  part  of  your  daily, 
enthusiastic  experience,  and  to  bring  to  bear  out  of 


WHAT  IS  PREACHING  ? 


13 


your  treasury  what  is  needed  here  or  there,  —  that 
requires  a  great  deal  of  experience,  and  a  great  deal 
of  study. 

THE  POWER  OF  PERSONAL  CHRISTIAN  VITALITY. 

This  living  force,  then,  of  the  human  soul,  brought 
to  bear  upon  living  souls,  for  the  sake  of  their  trans- 
formation, being  the  fundamental  idea,  I  think  it  will 
be  interesting  to  you  for  me  to  state  more  at  large 
the  fact  that  not  only  was  this  the  Apostolic  idea  of 
preaching,  but  it  was  the  secret  of  the  power  of  the 
first  Christian  Church  for  many  hundred  years.  It  is 
historically  true  that  Christianity  did  not  in  its  begin- 
ning succeed  by  the  force  of  its  doctrines,  but  by  the 
lives  of  its  disciples.  It  succeeded  first  as  a  light ;  in 
accordance  with  the  Master's  command,  "  Let  your  light 
so  shine  before  men  that  they,  seeing  your  good  works, 
m,ay  glorify  your  Father  which  is  in  heaven."  Make 
religion  attractive  by  the  goodness  that  men  see  in 
you ;  be  so  sweet,  so  sparkling,  so  buoyant,  so  cheerful, 
hopeful,  courageous,  conscientious  and  yet  not  stub- 
born, so  perfectly  benevolent  and  yet  not  mawkish 
or  sentimental ;  blossoming  in  everything  that  is  good, 
a  rebuke  to  everything  that  is  mean  or  little,  —  make 
such  men  of  yourselves  that  everybody  who  looks  upon 
you  may  say,  That  is  a  royal  good  fellow  ;  he  has 
the  spirit  that  I  should  like  to  lean  upon  in  time  of 
trouble,  or  to  be  a  companion  with  at  all  times."  Build 
up  such  a  manhood  that  it  shall  be  winning  to  men. 
That  is  what  the  early  Christians  did. 

It  was  not  by  doctrinal  subtleties  that  they  over- 
came philosophy.    The  heathen  world  found  that  the 


14 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


lowest  class  of  people,  the  people  least  likely  to  attain 
the  serious  heights  of  philosophy,  were  developing  traits 
that  neither  persecution,  neglect,  nor  opprobrium  could 
change ;  so  that  after  a  while  it  began  to  be  proverbial, 
that  Christian  men  were  more  beautiful  livers  than  any- 
body else.  It  was  the  beauty  of  Christian  life  that 
overcame  philosophy,  and  won  the  way  for  Christian 
doctrine. 

Again,  we  are  to  seek  to  preach,  not  simply  by  our 
own  personal  experience,  but  by  bringing  together  one 
and  another  in  the  church,  and  having  the  whole  life 
of  the  church  so  beautiful  in  the  community  tliat  it 
sliall  be  a  constant  attraction  to  win  men  unceasingly 
to  us  and  our  influence.  This  was  what  Christ  com- 
manded, what  the  early  church  did ;  and  the  world  will 
be  converted,  not  until  the  whole  body  of  Cliristians 
become  in  this  sense  preachers. 

SERMONS  AND  LITURGIES. 

In  view  of  the  statements  I  have  made,  I  wish  to 
discriminate  between  the  two  great  church  bodies  that 
exist.  We  are  apt  to  divide  tlie  Christian  world  into 
the  Protestant  and  Catholic.  I  prefer  to  divide  it  into 
the  Evangelical  and  the  Hierarchical.  They  are  sharply 
distinguished  by  various  other  things,  but  by  nothing 
more,  it  seems  to  me,  than  by  this,  that  the  Hierarchical 
body,  in  all  its  various  forms,  relies  for  its  success  upon 
the  administration  of  ordinances  and  systems  of  wor- 
ship ;  while  the  Evangelical  body  relies  substantially 
for  its  success  upon  the  living  force  of  man  upon  man. 
Both  hold  to  the  indispensableness  of  Divine  power; 
but  one  believes  that  power  to  work  chiefly  through 


WHAT  IS  PKEACHING  ? 


15 


church  ordinances,  the  other  believes  that  it  works 
through  living  nmi. 

Wherever  you  sliall  find  the  altar  and  the  sacrifice ; 
wherever  you  sliall  find  robes,  candles,  and  liturgies  ; 
wherever  you  shall  find  piled  high  instrumentalities 
of  tliis  kind,  sermons  shrink  and  sermonizers  are  fewer 
and  fewer.  Where  the  church  looks  for  power  in  exter- 
nal forms,  preaching  tends  to  decay.  On  the  other  hand, 
where  the  ordinances  are  very  few,  and  yet  the  church 
has  life,  the  pulpit  thrives  and  waxes  strong.  The  man 
in  the  pulpit  is  the  only  thing  the  Presbyterian  and 
Congregationalist  have  to  rely  upon  ;  but  when  you 
consider  that  preaching  means  the  power  of  living 
men  upon  living  men,  you  will  see  that  they  who  have 
strength  in  the  pulpit  have  the  very  heart  of  the  matter. 

There  is  just  as  much  difference  between  the  man  who 
is  a  mere  administrator  of  ordinances, —  which  Paul 
thanked  God  he  had  not  much  to  do  with,  for  he  had 
not  been  sent  to  baptize  but  to  preach  the  gospel,  and 
the  administration  of  ordinances  with  him  was  one 
thing  and  the  preaching  of  the  gospel  an  entirely  dif- 
ferent thing,  —  there  is  just  as  much  difference  between 
the  man  who  administers  ordinances  and  the  man  who 
preaches  the  gospel,  as  there  is  between  the  man  who 
prints  a  chromo  and  the  man  that  paints  the  picture 
which  the  chromo  prints.  The  man  that  strikes  out 
the  original  plan  upon  the  canvas  and  brings  it  to  its 
perfection  is  an  artist.  But  the  man  who  takes  fifteen 
stones,  every  stone  carrying  one  color,  and  from  them 
prints  the  chromo,  may  produce  a  perfect  picture,  but 
after  all  he  is  nothing  but  the  mechanician,  putting 
the  ink  on  the  paper,  while  the  stone  does  all  the  work. 


16 


LSCTURES  ON  PEEACHINa. 


The  man  that  preaches  with  power  is  an  artist.  He 
is  a  living  creature.  But  the  man  that  merely  comes 
to  administer  ordinances  on  Sundays  or  Saints'  days, 
who  goes  through  a  regular  routine,  is  nothing  but  the 
engineer  who  runs  the  machine. 

But  does  he  not  do  good  ?  Yes  ;  a  great  deal.  Is  not 
the  world  better  with  him  than  it  would  be  without 
him  ?  Yes ;  a  great  deal  better.  Yet  how  miKih  better 
it  would  be  if  you  could  have  both,  —  if  the  man  could 
be  a  living  creature,  to  say  what  he  has  got  in  him,  and 
then  carry  that  along,  and  confirm  it,  and  build  it  up 
by  institutional  influences.  Preaching  arouses,  gathers 
material,  prepares  the  way ;  institutions  come  in  to 
consolidate  and  keep. 

There  is  a  reason  why  different  churches  and  different 
men  succeed  as  they  do.  For  example,  take  a  Presby- 
terian, or  an  Orthodox  Congregational  Church,  in  which 
the  minister  is  an  acute  and  eminent  thinker ;  he  runs 
all  to  thought.  He  will  indoctrinate  his  people,  educate 
them,  build  them  up  disproportionately  in  their  minds, 
and  that  is  about  all.  Tilings  will  stand  steadily,  grow 
slowly,  and  develop  but  little.  Eight  alongside  of  him 
^here  is  a  man  with  strong,  emotive,  vitalizing  life ;  a 
man  who  is  not  so  much  after  thoughts  as  he  is  after 
the  people,  or  after  bait  to  catch  the  people  with.  He 
means  men,  first,  and  last,  and  all  the  while.  Systems, 
to  him,' are  beautiful  if  they  wdll  act  like  a  net  to  catch 
folks,  and  good  for  nothing  if  they  do  not.  High  doc- 
trines, to  him,  are  valuable,  just  in  proportion  as  they 
give  position  from  which  to  throw  stones  upon  the 
besiegers  round  about.  It  is  power  over  men  that  he 
wants.    He  is  not  necessarily  less  a  teacher ;  but  what 


WHAP  IS  PREACHING  ? 


17 


a  vitality  he  will  give  to  his  church  !  How  strongly  it 
will  swell !  How  it  will  grow  !  What  an  effect  it  will 
produce  in  the  community !  It  is  the  living  force  with- 
in him  that  does  it.  It  is  the  manhood  in  him  ;  it  is 
the  Spirit  of  God  dwelling  in  him,  that  is  the  occasion 
of  such  a  success. 

There  is  no  church,  in  my  experience,  more  suc- 
cessful than  the  Methodist  Church  in  the  West.  I 
worked  beside  that  church  for  fifteen  years,  and  saw 
the  whole  operation,  and  knew  the  men  that  were 
in  the  church.  They  were  not  men  largely  equipped 
with  theology.  I  knew  Elder  Havens  when  he  began 
to  preach.  He  knew  so  little,  had  so  little  culture,  that 
he  had  to  count  the  chapters  to  tell  what  chapter  it 
was,  and  then  count  the  verses  to  tell  what  verse  it 
was ;  yet  afterwards  he  became  no  mean  scholar.  I 
knew  hundreds  of  men  there  that  were  stammerers  in 
learning.  Yet,  on  the  whole,  they  had  eminent  power. 
They  did  no  institutional  work ;  but  they  had  zeal,  fer- 
vor, personal  feeling ;  and  by  that,  little  as  their  knowl- 
edge was,  small  as  was  the  area  of  the  thoughts  they 
brought  to  bear,  they  transformed  communities.  They 
w^ore  real  preachers.  They  had  the  right  idea  of  preach- 
ing, and  they  succeeded  in  spite  of  their  ignorance. 
Their  personal  experience  was  very  strong,  and  their 
feelings  were  outspoken,  demonstrative.  They  brought 
to  bear  the  truth  of  God  in  their  souls  upon  the  masses 
of  mankind,  and  the  effect  corresponded  to  the  cause. 

GENERAL  ADVANTAGES  OF  DIRECTNESS. 

This  view  also  will  discriminate  between  sermons,  — 
those  which  seek  direct  effects  definitely  aimed  at,  and 

B 


18 


LECTURES  ON  t^REACHlNa. 


those  that  are  institutional  sermons.  There  are  sermons 
for  preaching,  and  tliere  are  sermons  also  for  teaching 
and  confirming.  I  do  not  say  you  should  not  preach 
these  secondary  sermons  ;  but  if  that  is  the  whole  style 
of  your  ministry,  you  will  not  be  so  successful,  al- 
tliough  you  may  slowly  advance.  Every  man  ouglit  to 
preach  two  kinds  of  sermons :  one  for  direct  power  on 
men's  minds  and  hearts,  and  the  other  for  their  broad- 
ening in  knowledge ;  but  of  this  last  class,  less  and  less 
in  our  time,  because  the  people  have  so  many  other 
sources  of  knowledge,  and  so  many  other  training  in- 
fluences are  going  on  in  the  community. 

No  man  ought  to  go  into  the  pulpit  with  the  direct 
kind  of  sermon  without  having  a  definite  reason  why 
he  selected  one  subject  rather  than  another,  and  why 
he  put  it  in  one  form  rather  than  another.  The  old- 
fashioned  way  of  sermonizing  affords  us  some  amuse- 
ment ;  but  they  did  a  great  deal  of  good  with  those 
queer,  regulation  old  methods  of  first,  second,  third,  and 
then  the  subdivisions.  I  remember  that,  in  my  boy- 
hood, the  moment  a  man  announced  his  text,  I  could 
tell  pretty  nearly  as  well  as  he  could  how  he  would  laj^ 
it  out,  because  I  knew  he  must  proceed  according  to 
certain  forms. 

It  seems  to  me  that  the  highest  conception  of  a 
sermon  is,  that  it  is  a  prescription  which  a  man  has 
made,  either  for  a  certain  individual,  or  for  a  certain 
class,  or  for  a  certain  state  of  things  that  he  knows  to 
exist  in  the  congregation.  It  is  as  much  a  matter  of  pre- 
scription as  the  physician's  medicine  is.  For  instance, 
you  say,  "  In  my  congregation  there  has  been  a  good 
deal  of  affliction,  which  I  think  I  ought  to  comfort.  Now, 


WHAT  IS  PREACHING  ? 


19 


of  all  ways  of  comforting,  how  shall  I  do  it  ?  Shall 
I  show  the  hand  of  God  in  all  his  administration  ? 
What  will  that  do  ?  That  mode  of  consolation  will 
raise  people  up  into  the  conception  of  God ;  but  those 
that  cannot  rise  so  high  will  fall  short  of  it  and  not  get 
it.  Or,  I  can  show  them  how  afflictions  will  elevate  the 
soul ;  and  that  will  have  another  range.  Or,  it  may  be 
that  I  will  not  say  a  w^ord  about  that,  but  strike  a  blow 
that  exhilarates  men  and  lifts  them  up,  independent 
of  any  allusion  to  troubles ;  I  may  strike  a  chord  to 
awaken  the  courage  of  men.  What  subject  can  I  take 
which  will  most  successfully  sound  that  chord  ?  '*  And 
so  you  look  for  your  subject.  You  know  what  you  are 
after  the  whole  time.  It  is  exactly  like  the  watch- 
maker, who  has  opened  your  watch  and  discovered  that 
something  is  wrong.  He  turns  to  his  bench  and  pokes 
around  among  his  tools,  but  cannot  find  what  he 
w^ants ;  he  looks  everywhere  for  it,  and  at  last,  there  it 
is,  and  he  takes  it  and  uses  it,  for  it  is  the  only  instru- 
ment exactly  fitted  to  do  just  the  thing  he  wanted  to 
do  in  that  watch.  Now,  in  preaching  to  a  congrega- 
tion there  are  living  men  to  reach ;  and  there  is  a 
particular  way  of  doing  it  that  you  want  to  get  at. 
You  search  for  it  in  the  Bible;  and  you  make  your 
sermon  to  answer  the  end.  This  is  psychological  preach- 
ing, drawing  from  your  own  gradually  augmenting  in- 
telligence aiid  experience,  which  will  make  you  skilful 
in  the  ends  you  want  to  effect. 

MAN-BUILDING,  THE  PREACHER'S  BUSINESS. 

I  will  add  only  one  thing  more,  for  I  shall  resume 
this  subject ;  and  that  is,  that  I  have  participated  with 


20 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


a  great  many  in  one  experience.  I  have  been  undei 
the  penumbra  of  doubt.  I  look  upon  the  progress  of 
physical  science  and  see  the  undermining  influences  that 
are  going  on.  I  see  that  probably  churches  as  they  are 
now  constituted  will  not  stand,  and  that  a  vast  amount 
of  what  is  called  technical  theology  will  have  to  un- 
dergo great  mutations.  I  know  there  are  many  minds 
in  the  darkness  of  cloud  who  ask,  Is  there  a  God  ? 
or,  Is  it  a  Pantheistic  God  ?  or,  Is  there  a  revelation  ? 
Can  there  be  an  inspiration  in  this  world  ?  The  whole 
of  this  reacts  on  the  community,  so  that  a  young  man 
who  is  thinking  about  preaching  may  say  to  himself, 
"  I  will  not  go  into  a  profession  which  seems  likely  to 
be  overthrown  before  long ;  where,  in  a  few  years,  all 
my  employment  will  drop  out  of  my  hands,  scepticism 
is  prevailing  to  sucli  an  extent." 

Young  gentlemen,  I  want  to  tell  you  my  belief  upon 
that  point.  True  preaching  is  yet  to  come.  Of  all  the 
professions  for  young  men  to  look  forward  to,  I  do  not 
know  another  one  that  seems  to  me  to  have  such  scope 
before  it  in  the  future  as  preaching.  I  mean  this. 
There  is  one  fact  that  is  not  going  to  be  overturned  by 
science ;  and  that  is  the  necessity  of  human  develop- 
ment, and  the  capability  there  is  in  man  of  being 
opened  up  and  improved.  If  there  is  one  thing  that 
can  be  substantiated  more  clearly  than  another,  it  is 
that  the  development  indicated  by  Christianity  is  right 
along  the  line  of  nature.  Men  walk  from  the  fleshly 
up  to  the  spiritual.  If  there  can  be  one  thing  shown 
to  be  more  true  than  another,  it  is  that  Christian- 
ity is  walking  toward  spiritual  love  as  the  polar  star, 
the  grand  centre.    If  there  is  one  thing  in  this  world 


WHAT  IS  PREACHING? 


21 


more  worthy  of  being  worked  than  another,  it  is  the 
human  sonl.  And  if  there  is  one  business  better  worth 
a  man's  thought  than  another,  it  is  a  profession  that 
undertakes  to  educate  men  along  this  common  line,  of 
nature  and  Christianity  together,  and  lift  them  up  from 
basilar  conditions  and  methods  to  the  coronal  heights 
where  understanding,  moral  sentiment,  taste,  imagina- 
tion, and  love  are  intermingled. 

That  is  the  business  of  the  preacher.  It  is  not  to 
grind  a  church.  It  is  not  to  turn  a  wheel.  It  is  not 
to  cuff  about  the  controversies  of  theology.  It  is  a 
living  work,  —  building-work.  If  you  are  to  be  true 
preachers,  you  are  to  be  man-builders ;  and  in  the  days 
yet  to  come  there  is  to  be  no  labor  so  worthy  of  a  man's 
ambition  as  that  of  building  men  worthily,  that  at 
last  you  may  present  them  spotless  before  the  throne 
of  God. 

QUESTIONS  AND  ANSWERS. 

Now  for  questions,  if  you  want  to  ask  any. 

Q.  In  keeping  an  eye  upon  the  congregation,  and  looking  for- 
ward to  a  ministry  which  may  be  for  years,  would  you  not  think 
best  to  follow  in  the  general  system  of  thought  which  we  call 
Calvinistic  ?  Can  we  pass  by  the  teachings  of  the  schools  and 
construct  our  own  theology  ?  Or  shall  we  have  for  a  background, 
for  a  corner-stone,  if  you  please,  of  all  our  systems  of  thought  and 
preaching,  that  system  which  is  called  Calvinistic  ? 

Mr.  Beecher.  —  I  admire  the  discretion  with  which 
you  put  that  question.  If  you  had  asked  me  whether 
you  ought  to  follow  that  system  which  is  Calvinism,  I 
should  say,  No.  But  if  you  ask  whether  you  ought 
to  follow  that  system  which  is  called  Calvinisili,  I  say 


22 


LECTURES  ON  PKEACHING. 


it  is  very  well  to  follow  that ;  for  I  have  noticed  what 
that  which  is  called  Calvinism  may  be  defined  to  be. 
For  instance,  I  consider  myself  Calvinistic,  you  know ; 
and  in  this  way :  I  believe  what  John  Calvin  would  have 
believed  if  he  had  lived  in  my  time  and  seen  things  as 
I  see  them.  My  first  desire  is  to  know  what  is  true;/ 
and  then  I  am  very  glad  if  John  Calvin  agrees  witli  me, 
but  if  he  don't,  so  much  the  worse  for  him  !  While  I 
accept  the  work  that  God  did  by  him  in  the  interpre- 
tation and  in  the  systematization  of  truth,  —  and  I 
shall  have  a  good  deal  to  say  about  Calvinism  and  in 
favor  of  Calvinism  before  I  get  through,  in  respect  to 
its  doctrines  and  its  historic  work,  —  yet  it  seems  to  me 
that  I  have  the  same  Lord  Jesus  Christ  that  John  Cal- 
vin had,  the  same  Paul,  the  same  John,  and  nothing 
that  hinders  me  in  any  way  from  looking  right  into 
their  hearts  and  forming  my  own  idea  of  what  they 
were  and  how  they  felt,  just  as  he  did ;  with  the  addi- 
tional advantage  that  I  have  in  the  light  of  hundreds 
of  years'  unfolding  of  the  Christian  Church  which  he 
had  not,  for  he  constructed  his  system  under  the  drip- 
pings of  the  old  Eoman  hierarchy.  Besides,  John  Cal- 
vin had  an  inordinate  share  of  intellect  and  not  half 
his  share  of  heart.    Have  I  answered  sufficiently  ? 

Q.  If  you  were  requested  to  preach  on  Election  and  Predesti- 
nation in  a  church  whose  members  held  the  old  faith  on  these 
points,  how  would  you  meet  that  request  ? 

Mr.  Beecher.  —  I  should  preach  it  as  I  find  it  in 
the  New  Testament.  I  should  not  ask  the  catechisms, 
which  are  helps  to  those  whom  they  help.  I  should 
take  it  as  I  find  it  in  the  New  Testament,  —  that  God 
has  a  pTan  in  the  world ;  that  he  works  according  to 


WHAT  IS  PREACHIISG  ? 


23 


laws  ;  and  that  natural  laws  are  divine  decrees.  I  very 
frankly  admit  that  those  truths  can  be  stated  in  a  way 
so  as  to  be  very  offensive  and  discouraging ;  but  I  thank- 
fully believe  that  they  can  be  stated  in  another  way  so 
as  to  be  the  foundation  and  groundwork  of  hope  and 
courage.  Whatever  else  you  do,  don't  slam  the  door 
of  possibility  in  any  man's  face.  Don't  hold  up  any 
of  the  truths  of  the  gospel  in  such  a  way  that  the  man 
who  looks  at  them  shall  say  it  is  not  possible  to  be 
saved.  The  teaching  of  Christ  and  the  Apostles  was 
that  God  wanted  all  men  to  be  saved,  and  made  over- 
tures to  them  ;  that  there  is  a  possibility  of  every  man's 
being  regenerated  by  the  power  of  the  Holy  Ghost. 
Build  up  such  a  spiritual  superstructure  that  every  little 
child  shall  feel  it  to  be  easier  to  live  a  Christian  life  than 
an  ungodly  life. 

Q.  If  you  went  into  a  neighborhood  where  Universahsm  or 
Spirituahsm  prevailed,  woukl  you  preach  against  them,  or  pass 
them  by  ? 

Mr.  Beecher.  —  I  cannot  answer  that  question  pre- 
cisely, it  would  depend  on  so  many  considerations  ;  the 
first  of  which  might  be  how  far  the  preacher  were 
himself  infected  with  it.  Secondly,  what  class  of  the 
community  was  infected.  If  the  thinking  class,  and 
the  influential,  three  or  four  families,  I  might  take  one 
course  ;  but  if  it  w^as  only  the  ignorant,  and  those  that 
had  no  influence  upon  society,  I  might  take  another 
course.  That  is  a  theme  w^hich  I  shall  take  up  more 
fully  by  and  by,  in  speaking  of  entering  a  new  com- 
munity ;  but  I  am  quite  wilKng  to  consider  tho  ques- 
tion now,  for  I  do  not  fear  to  exhaust  the  subject. 

I  rQcoUect  hearing  my  father  say  that  when  he  went 


24 


LECTURES  OF  ^KEACHING. 


to  East  Hampton  and  began  to  preach  there,  he  was 
surrounded  by  the  influence  of  French  infidelity,  and  the 
leading  men  of  that  community  were  infidels.  Said  he : 
"  I  did  not  undertake  to  argue  with  them.  I  preached 
one  or  two  great  sermons,  to  shov  them  I  had  big  guns 
and  was  not  afraid  of  them ;  and  after  that  I  preached 
right  to  their  consciences ;  and  the  result  was  that  a 
great  revival  of  religion  came  up  there,  and  after  that  I 
never  heard  anything  about  infidelity."  One  of  the 
most  affecting  little  things  came  to  my  knowledge  the 
other  day.  There  was  one  man  in  that^congregation  who 
was  never  converted,  who  never  gave  up  ostensibly  his 
^fidelity  ;  although  he  loved  my  father  very  much  in- 
deed, yet  he  never  seemed  to  be  brought  into  the  king- 
dom during  his  time  there.  There  was  one  little  child, 
Harriet,  born  into  our  family,  which  after  a  short  time 
fell  asleep.  This  little  baby  was  the  only  thing  we  left 
behind  in  moving  from  the  place.  So  this  man,  twenty 
or  twenty-five  years  after  father  had  gone  away,  said  one 
day  to  his  wife,  "  I  canno:  bf  ir  to  have  that  little  child 
of  Dr.  Beecher's  left  there  all  alone  " ;  and  he  had  the 
child  taken  up,  and  put  it  in  his  own  ground,  where  his 
wife  now  lies  on  one  side  and  he  upon  the  other,  and 
the  little  baby  snugly  gathered  in  their  bosoms  there. 
Such  was  the  effect  produced  upon  his  mind  by  my 
father's  preaching  and  example  ;  and  although  he  did 
not  outwardly  come  into  the  community  of  the  faith, 
the  impression  never  wore  off,  and  I  should  not  wonder 
if  he  were  in  heaven. 

Q.  If  you  went  into  a  neighborhood  in  which  there  were  petty 
troubles  among  famihes,  would  you  preach  against  such  things  ? 

Mr.  Beegher.  —  Generally  speaking,  meddling  with 


WHAT  IS  PREACHING  ? 


25 


families  is  dangerous  business ;  and  as  it  is  dangerous 
personally,  so  it  is  dangerous  pulpitly  ;  inasmuch  as  you 
would  instantly,  for  the  most  part,  produce  sides,  and 
they  would  take  your  sermon  and  turn  it  into  artillery 
to  fire  at  each  other,  backward  and  forward.  No;  if  you 
want  to  cure  one  malign  feeling,  recollect  that  our  feel- 
ings act,  as  it  were,  in  poles  ;  that  there  is  an  antagonistic 
feeling.  If  a  child  cries,  the  nurse,  who  is  a  better  phi- 
losopher than  many  wiser  heads,  makes  the  child  laugh. 
She  makes  up  faces,  makes  herself  grotesque  ;  the  child 
struggles  against  it  for  a  while,  but  finally  bursts  out 
Icughing,  and  that  moment  tl- :  crying  and  the  anger 
are  ill  gone.  Two  opposite  feelings  cannot  coexist. 
If  anger  is  up,  good-nature  is  down.  If  you  want  to 
get  anger  down,  don't  try  to  push  it  down, —  that  won't 
do ;  but  go  to  the  other  end  and  pry  up  good-nature. 

Q.  Groing  into  a  small  place,  where  there  are  few  educating 
influences,  would  not  you  preach  a  fair  proportion  of  educating 
sermons  ? 

Mr.  Beecher.  —  Is  not  the  arousing  influence  of  the 
revival  system  an  educating  one  ?  Is  there  any  educa- 
tion that  proceeds  so  fast  as  that  which  takes  place  un- 
der a  warm  and  newly  developed  moral  feeling  ?  Men  ^ 
in  the  ordinary  stage  are  like  robins'  eggs  in  the  nest ; 
you  cannot  feed  them.  Let  the  robin  sit  on  them  a  lit- 
tle while,  and  by  and  by  there  will  be  nothing  but  four 
mouths,  and  as  fast  as  you  put  in  worms  they  will  gulp 
them.  To  educate  man  in  the  cold  and  natural  state 
is  just  like  feeding  eggs.  Warm  them,  and  give  them 
life,  and  they  will  eat. 

Q.  You  speak  of  presenting  the  truth  as  a  man  thinks  it  and 
feels  it  and  lives  it  himself.    Is  there  a  danger  connected  with 
2 


26 


LECTUKES  ON  PREACHING. 


that,  of  being  too  egotistical  in  our  preaching,  so  that  when  we 
present  a  truth  as  we  feel  it  and  think  it,  men  will  say,  "  Here  is 
a  man  that  professes  to  have  a  great  deal  deeper  thoughts,  and  a 
great  deal  deeper  feehngs  than  we  have,"  and  an  antagonistic  feel- 
ing will  be  aroused  against  us  ?    How  can  that  be  overcome  ? 

Mr.  Beecher.  —  You  will  never  preach  so  wisely  or 
so  well,  if  you  preach  continuously,  as  to  guard  against 
all  these  dangers.  You  cannot  help  yourself.  If  a  sur- 
geon were  ten  times  as  skilful  as  he  is,  and  he  had  to 
probe  a  wound,  he  could  not  probe  it  so  that  it  would 
be  a  luxury  to  tlie  patient.  If  anything  is  to  be  cut  off, 
or  tied  up,  or  changed  radically,  changed  in  such  a  way 
that  the  pride  must  come  down,  it  will  cause  pain.  It 
is  not  easy  to  take  the  yoke  or  the  burden  of  Christ,  in 
the  taking  of  it ;  it  is  only  after  you  have  got  your  neck 
accustomed  to  it  that  the  yoke  is  easy  and  the  burden  is 
light.  No  matter  how  wisely  or  well  you  put  it,  there 
will  be  trouble,  and  it  will  be  just  in  proportion  to  the 
disturbance  you  make.  And  the  disturbance  will  be  ac- 
cording to  the  wisdom  and  the  love  which  you  manifest. 
No  man  is  such  a  master  of  his  business  that  he  can  go 
into  a  community  nrid  preach,  saying  to  himself,  "  This 
is  ideally  perfect."  Your  mode  ot  presenting  the  truth 
will  be  imperfect.  Your  partialisms  are  full  of  danger. 
For  instance,  if  you  are  a  quiet  man,  you  will  have  a 
tendency  to  preach  so  as  not  to  arouse  any  feeling.  On 
the  other  hand,  if  you  are  pugnacious  and  energetic, 
your  sermons  will  be  aj^t  to  be  full  of  lances  and  thrusts. 
There  is  a  great  deal  about  a  man's  personality  that 
has  got  to  be  educated.  If  one  is  frank,  genial,  warm- 
hearted, and  if  he  is  going  to  be  a  minister,  and  pulls 
down  his  face  and  says,  "  Now  I  must  walk  with  th^ 


WHAT  IS  PREACHING  ? 


27 


utmost  precision/'  and  he  begins  to  walk  just  so,  and  to 
administer  just  so,  thinking  that  coldness  and  sanctity 
have  some  peculiar  relation  to  each  oth^r,  he  does  vio- 
lence to  his  uature.  When  God  made  him  warm-hearted 
and  gushing,  he  gave  him  a  power  with  which  to  do  his 
work.  Take  your  strongest  point  and  make  the  most 
of  it.  The  modifications  and  limitations  of  this  will 
come  up  for  more  remark  hereafter. 

Q.  Don't  you  think  it  is  a  good  plan  to  preach  a  variety  of 
sermons,  intellectual  and  emotional? 

Mr.  Beecher.  —  Never  two  alike,  if  you  can  help  it. 
I  heard  described  the  other  day  a  style  of  preaching 
which  was  likened  to  the  way  they  are  said  to  build  ^ 
ships  down  in  Maine.  They  build  them  down  there 
by  the  mile  ;  and  when  they  have  an  order  they  cut 
off  so  much,  round  up  a  stern  and  a  bow,  and  send  it. 
Thus  some  sermons  seem  to  have  been  built  by  the 
mile.  There  seems  to  be  no  earthly  reason  why  the 
preacher  should  begin  in  one  place  rather  than  an- 
other, or  why  he  should  stop  in  one  jjlace  rather  than 
another.  He  could  preach  ten  hours,  if  not  ordered  to 
stop ;  and  wherever  he  stops  he  is  ready  to  begin 
again ;  and  so  to  go  on  until  the  judgment-day.  That 
kind  of  iteration  is  the  most  hurtful  of  all  things. 
A  man  keeps  a  boarding-house,  and  the  boarders  like 
bacon  for  breakfast.  So  he  gives  them  bacon  on  Mon- 
day, and  Tuesday,  and  Wednesday,  and  Thursday,  and 
Friday,  and  Saturday,  and  Sunday,  and  Monday,  and 
Tuesday,  —  until  by  and  by  one  of  them  comes  to  him  ^ 
and  says,  "  Mr.  Jacobs,  we  like  bacon  pretty  well, 
but  lately  we  have  got  tired  of  it ;  we  should  like 
something  else."      Well,  what  will  you  have  ? "  "  Let 


^8 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


US  have  pork  and  beans."  So  he  gives  them  pork  and 
beans  on  Monday,  pork  and  beans  on  Tuesday,  and  on 
Wednesday,  and  keeps  feeding  them  on  pork  and  beans 
until  they  protest  again.  Now,  everybody  gets  stale  on 
any  one  thing.  Seventeen  sermons  on  the  doctrine  of 
retribution  as  it  is  found  in  nature  rather  tire  a  man 
out.  Mrs.  Stowe  said,  when  she  returned  from  Germany, 
that  she  really  enjoyed  the  German  church  singing  until 
they  reached  the  eighteenth  or  nineteenth  stanza,  but 
she  generally  got  tired  then ;  and  it  is  about  so  with 
preaching. 


II 


^QUALIFICATIONS  OF  THE  PEEACHER 

February  1,  1872. 

^^^^  LOQUENCE  has  been  defined,  sometimes,  as 
the  art  of  moving  men  by  speech.  Preach- 
ing has  this  additional  quality,  that  it  is  the 
art  of  movino-  men  from  a  lower  to  a  his/her 
life.  It  is  the  art  of  inspiring  them  toward  a  nobler 
manhood. 

In  thinking  about  the  preparation  for  the  Christian 
ministry,  we  are  apt  to  regard  the  sermon  as  the  chief 
thing;  and  certainly,  in  the  whole  series  of  instru- 
ments, it  does  rank  highest,  for  the  power  of  the  man, 
all  that  he  has  been  doing  collaterally,  culminates  in 
that.  After  all,  there  is  a  world  of  encouragement 
for  men  that  cannot  preach.  If  a  preacher  is  a  true 
man  (and  a  true  man  spreads  out  and  covers  with 
himself  all  times  and  all  places),  he  preaches  not 
only  while  he  is  in  the  pulpit ;  but  just  as  much 
when  he  is  conversing  with  a  little  child  upon  the 
sidewalk,  when  he  is  in  a  social  company,  or  when 
he  is  out  on  a  sportive  or  picnic  occasion  with  his 
people.  A  true  minister  is  a  man  whose  manhood 
itself  is  a  strono^  and  influential  argument  with  his 


30 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


people.  He  lives  in  such  relations  with  God,  and  in 
such  genuine  sympathy  with  man,  that  it  is  a  pleas- 
ure to  be  under  the  unconscious  influence  of  such  a 
mind.  Just  as,  lying  on  a  couch  in  a  summer's  even- 
ing, you  hear  from  a  neighboring  house  the  low 
breathing  of  an  instrument  of  nuisic,  so  far  away  that  ^ 
you  can  only  hear  its  palpitation,  but  cannot  discern  ' 
the  exact  tune  that  is  played,  and  are  soothed  by  it 
and  drawn  nearer  to  hear  more  ;  thus  the  true  Chris- 
tian minister  is  himself  so  inspiring,  so  musical,  there 
is  so  much  of  the  divine  element  in  him,  rendered 
homelike  by  incarnation  with  his  disposition,  brought 
down  to  the  level  of  man's  understanding,  that  wher- 
ever he  goes  little  children  want  to  see  him,  plain 
people  want  to  be  with  liim ;  everybody  says  when  he 
comes,  "  Good  !  "  and  everybody  says  when  he  goes 
away,  "  I  wish  he  had  stayed  longer"  ;  all  who  come  in 
contact  with  him  are  inclined  to  live  a  better  life. 
Manhood  is  the  best  sermon.  It  is  good  to  fill  the 
minds  of  people  with  the  nobleness  and  sweetness  of 
the  thing  itself  to  which  you  would  fain  draw  them. 
"Go  preach"  was  no  more  authoritative  than  ''Let  your 
light  so  shine  that  men,  seeing  your  good  works,  shall 
glorify  your  Father." 

There  is  no  form  of  preaching  that  can  afford  to  dis- 
pense with  tlie  preacher's  moral  beauty.  He  may  be  as 
hoinely  as  you  please,  physically  ;  as  awkward  as  you 
please  ;  but  you  will  find  in  the  true  preacher  some- 
where an  element  of  beauty ;  for  God  works  always 
toward  beauty,  which  is  one  sign  of  perfection,  so  that, 
though  not  an  essential  element,  beauty  is  still  a  sign 
and  token  of  the  higher  forms  of  creation. 


QUALIFICATIONS  OF  THE  PREACHER.  31 

I  endeavored  to  impress  you  yesterday  with  the  idea 
that  preaching  is  tlie  exertion  of  the  living  force  of  men 
upon  living  men  for  the  sake  of  developing  in  them  a 
higher  manhood.  I  say  a  higher  manhood  rather  than 
a  higher  life,  because  I  do  not  wish  to  separate  a  Chris- 
tian life  as  something  distinct  from  the  movement  of 
the  whole  being.  Men  are  not  like  musical  organs  of 
many  stops,  one  of  which  is  Eeligion,  as  something 
separable  and  distinct  from  the  rest  of  their  nature.  Ee- 
ligion is  harmonized  human  nature.  It  includes  every 
element  which  manhood  includes.  It  is  wdiolesome- 
ness  of  soul.  It  is  manhood,  on  a  higher  plane.  It 
includes  the  physical,  the  social,  the  intellectual,  the 
aesthetic,  the  moral,  the  spiritual.  Tlie  whole  man  work- 
ing in  harmony  witli  the  laws  of  his  condition,  —  that 
is  the  New  Testament  idea  of  a  Christian  man.  And 
that  which  we  undertake  to  do  by  preaching,  whether 
in  its  technical  or  special  form,  by  the  delivery  of  a  ser- 
mon or  in  its  collateral  and  more  diffusible  forms  by 
social  intercourse,  is  to  mould  and  shape  men  into  a 
nobler  manhood,  Jesus  Christ  being  the  highest  ideal 
and  exemplar.  Our  ministry  is  effectual  in  propor- 
tion as  we  do  that,  and  deficient  in  the  proportion  in 
which  we  fail  to  do  it. 

SHOW-SERMONS. 

A  good  many  young  men,  beginning  to  preach,  feel 
that  they  don't  know  what  to  do.  They  naturally  fall 
back  upon  their  note-books,  upon  the  development  of 
some  system  of  truth.  They  undertake  to  present  to 
their  people  topic  after  topic  based  upon  great  gospel 
themes.    And  of  course  they  can  do  no  better  than  that 


32  LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 

in  the  beginning.  Still,  that  is  rather  preparing  to 
preach  than  preaching.  It  is  like  a  man  who  is  prac- 
tising with  his  rifle  at  a  target  that  he  does  not  see, 
who  hits  by  accident  if  he  hits,  rather  than  by  deliber- 
ate aim.  You  cannot  expect  a  man  to  do  better  until 
he  has  learned.  It  is  no  easy  thing  for  one  to  be  in 
such  familiar  possession  of  the  great  moral  truths  re- 
vealed in  the  Bible,  and  in  such  familiar  knowledge  of 
men's  natures  and  dispositions,  that  he  can  take  of  the 
one  and  fit  it  to  the  other  almost  by  intuition.  But 
intuition  is  only  a  name  for  superior  habit. 

No  one  should  be  discouraged  in  the  beginning  of 
his  ministry,  therefore,  if  he  finds  himself  running 
short  of  subjects  ;  preaching  a  great  deal  and  accom- 
plishing but  very  little ;  having  comparatively  a  light 
hold  upon  truths,  and  not  being  able  by  these  truths 
to  grapple  men  effectually.  Every  one  has  an  ideal  in 
his  mind.  He  thinks  of  Whitefield  ;  and  of  J onathan 
Edwards,  with  the  man  pulling  at  his  coat-tails  and 
trying  to  stop  that  terrible  burst  of  statement  and  de- 
nunciation that  was  crushing  the  congregation.  Every 
young  man  who  is  aspiring  wants  to  do  great  things, 
and  to  preach  great  sermons.  Great  sermons,  young 
gentlemen,  ninety-nine  times  in  a  hundred,  are  nui- 
sances. They  are  like  steeples  without  any  bells  in»^ 
them ;  things  stuck  up  high  in  the  air,  serving  for  or- 
nament, attracting  observation,  but  sheltering  nobody, 
warming  nobody,  helping  nobody.  It  is  not  these  great 
sermons  that  any  man  should  propose  to  himself  'as 
models.  Of  course,  if  now  and  then  in  legitimate,  hon- 
est, and  manly  work,  you  are  in  the  right  mood,  and 
are  brought  into  a  state  of  excitement  of  which  a  great 


QUALIFICATIONS  OF  THE  PREAClIEH. 


33 


sermon  is  the  result,  preach  it,  and  don't  be  afraid.  But 
great  sermons  will  come  of  themselves,  when  they  are 
worth  anything.  Don't  seek  them  ;  for  that  of  itself 
is  almost  enough  to  destroy  their  value. 

I  do  not  say  this  for  the  purpose  of  abating  one  par- 
ticle of  your  studiousness,  or  the  earnestness  with  which 
you  labor.  I  do  not  undertake  to  say  that  there  may 
not  be  some  indulgence  at  times  in  that  direction  ;  that 
is  to  say,  if  you  have  wTitten  a  sermon  that  has  done 
good,  it  may  do  good  again.  But  I  do  say  that,  gener- 
ally speaking,  show-sermons  are  the  temptation  of  the 
Devil.  They  do  not  lie  in  the  plane  of  common,  true 
Christian,  ministerial  work.  They  are  not  natui'al  to 
a  man  whose  heart  is  moved  with  genuine  sympathy 
for  man,  and  who  is  inspired  in  that  sympathy  by  the 
fire  of  the  Spirit  of  God.  There  is  a  false  greatness 
in  sermons  as  well  as  in  men.  Vanity,  Ambition,  Ped-  ^ 
antry,  are  demons  that  love  to  clothe  themselves  in 
rhetorical  garments,  like  angels  of  light  ! 

J  SYMPATHY  WITH  MEN. 

In  speaking  of  bringing  to  bear  upon  men  a  living 
force  for  their  exaltation  in  the  spiritual  life,  I  want  to 
call  your  attention  to  the  very  natural  substitutes  that 
men  take  for  this.  I  know  men  of  great  learning,  —  I 
could  mention  their  names,  and  you  would  recognize 
them  as  men  of  great  ability  in  their  pastoral  lives,  — 
men  of  the  greatest  breadth  of  thought,  and  really  and 
interiorly  men  of  profound  emotion  ;  but  their  ministry 
has  never  been  very  fruitful ;  that  is,  they  have  never 
moved  either  the  multitudes,  or,  very  largely,  the  indi- 
viduals, of  the  communitv  where  they  have  been.  I 


34 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


have  thought  I  saw  the  reason  of  it  in  this :  that  their 
sympathy  ran  ahnost  exclusively  toward  God.  They 
were  on  God's  side  altogether.  They  were  always 
vindicating  God.  They  were  upholding  the  Divine 
government.  And  they  produced,  if  I  may  say  so,  the 
feeling  that  tliey  were  God's  attorneys,  that  they  were 
special  pleaders  on  that  side.  I  would  not  say  that  a 
man  should  not  be  in  sympathy  with  God,  but  it  must 
be  remembered  that  God  himself  is  in  sympathy  with 
sinful  and  erring  men,  that  he  broke  down  all  the  bril- 
liance and  glory  of  the  heavenly  estate  tlmt  he  might 
mingle  himself  among  them;  and  no  preacher  is  the 
true  agent  of  God,  or  really  takes  sides  with  God,  who 
does  not  sympathize  with  men,  but  who  simply  holds 
up  the  majesty  and  sternness  and  power  and  glory  of 
the  Divine  government. 

I  have  seen  men  who  all  the  while  produced  tlie 
impression,  God  —  God  —  God  ;  there  was  nothing  in 
them  that  breathed  of  gentleness,  sweetness,  or  syir  • 
pathy,  —  the  very  tilings  that  characterized  Christ,  a  A 
which  were  in  him  the  interpretation  of  the  real  in- 
terior Godhead  ;  those  things  were  absent  from  their 
ministry ;  and,  if  you  will  not  misunderstand  it,  I 
would  say  that  they  failed  because  they  had  too  exclu- 
sive a  sympathy  with  God. 

Then  I  have  seen  another  class  of  men  who  were  so 
constructed  and  educated  that  they  had  an  intense 
sympathy  with  ideas,  with  organized  thought,  religious 
V  system,  or  philosophy  ;  who  studied  profoundly,  who 
constructed  ably,  who  had  much  that  was  instructive 
in  their  work.  But  after  all,  wdiile  everybody  felt  the 
strength  of  their  sermons,  almost  nobody^  cxs  moved  or 


QUALIFICATIONS  OF  THE  PREACHER. 


35 


changed  by  them.  And  I  have  seen  ministers  with  not 
one  quarter  of  this  equipment  really  lift  and  inspire  a 
congregation,  producing  an  effect  which,  witli  a  j)roper 
following  up,  might  have  been  permanently  crystallized 
into  life  and  disposition. 

^ There  should  be  in  you  a  strong  sympathy  with  the 
intellectual  elements  of  the  ministry ;  but  it  should 
never  overlie,  and  certainly  should  not  absorb  or  im- 
pede, the  more  legitimate  sympathy  you  are  to  have 
with  men  themselves.  Eeflect  for  one  moment  what 
must  have  been  the  state  of  mind  of  the  man  who 
wrote  such  a  thing  as  this  :  — 

"  For  I  think  that  God  hath  set  forth  us  the  apostles  last,  as  it 
were  appointed  to  death ;  for  we  are  made  a  spectacle  unto  the 
world,  and  to  angels,  and  to  men.  We  are  fools  for  Christ's  sake, 
but  ye  are  wise  in  Christ." 

Paul  was  intensely  proud,  sensitive  as  a  thermometer  ^ 
is  to  heat ;  and  you  will  see  that  under  all  the  sweet- 
ness, the  efflorescence  of  the  Christian  life,  there  is  still 
the  principle  of  egotism  :  — 

For  I  think  that  Grod  hath  set  forth  us  the  apostles  last,  as  it 
were  appointed  to  death ;  for  we  are  made  a  spectacle  unto  the 
world,  and  to  angels,  and  to  men.  We  are  fools  for  Christ's  sake  ; 
but  ye  are  wise  in  Christ;  we  are  weak,  but  ye  are  strong:  ye 
are  honorable,  but  we  are  despised.  Even  unto  this  present  hour 
we  both  hunger  and  thirst,  and  are  naked,  and  are  buffeted,  and 
have  no  certain  dwelling-place ;  and  labor,  working  with  our  own 
hands;  being  reviled,  we  bless;  being  persecuted,  we  suffer  it; 
being  defamed,  we  entreat ;  we  are  made  as  the  filth  of  the  world, 
and  are  the  offscouring  of  all  things  unto  this  day." 

You  will  recollect  other  passages  in  which  he  said 
that  to  the  Jew  he  became  a  Jew  that  he  might  win 
Jews ;  and  to  those  without  law,  as  without  law,  that 


36 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


he  might  bring  them  all  to  God.  There  never  wavS  such 
a  manifestation  of  the  willowiness  of  a  man  of  absolute 
steel  in  disposition.  He  was  one  of  stern  personal 
identity ;  and  yet,  by  the  love  of  Christ  and  by  the 
sympathy  he  had  with  men,  he  said,  —  or  would  have 
said,  had  he  spoken  in  modern  English,  —  "I  know 
how  to  fit  myself  to  every  sinuosity  and  rugosity  of 
every  single  disposition  with  which  I  have  to  deal ; 
^yjou  cannot  find  me  a  man  so  deep  or  so  high,  so  blunt 
or  so  sharp,  but  I  would  take  the  shape  of  that  man's 
disposition,  in  order  to  come  into  sympathy  with  him, 
if  by  so  doing  I  could  lift  him  to  a  higher  and  a  nobler 
plane  of  life." 

When  I  see  men  standing  in  the  royalty  of  ordina- 
tion, who  have  been  made  golden  candlesticks  of  grace, 
who  feel  what  is  called  ''the  dignity  of  their  profes- 
sion," and  move  up  and  down  in  life,  neatly  receiving 
the  praise  and  deference  of  everybody  round  about 
them,  and  requesting  men  who  pass  to  look  upon  God's 
ordained  ministers,  I  think  by  contrast  of  Paul,  with 
that  diffusiveness  that  he  gave  himself,  that  univer- 
sal adaptation  of  himself,  —  who  mothered  everybody, 
whereve:  ne  went.  There  is  not  a  thing  so  menial  in 
the  kitchen,  there  is  not  a  thing  so  distasteful  in  the 
nursery,  there  is  not  a  thing  so  offensive  to  every  sense, 
that  the  mother  does  not  say,  over  her  sick  child, 
"  Now  let  me  do  it ;  should  the  child  die,  it  would  be  a 
grief  to  think  that  aruybody  did  these  things  but  me." 
The  mother  makes  haste  to  do  those  most  offensive 
things  for  her  darling  child  because  she  loves  it.  Q\.nd 
so  the  true  man  has  that  vital  sympathy  with  men,  that 
there  is  nothing  that  he  would  not  become  or  do,  if  by 


QUALIFICATIONS  OF  THE  PREACHER. 


37 


so  doing  he  could  get  hold  of  them  and  make  better 
men  of  them,  that,  as  Paul  says,  he  may  present  them 
H^3,ultless  before  God.7 

PERSONAL  CHARACTER  OF  THE  PREACHER. 

Your  work,  therefore,  as  a  Christian  minister,  let  me 
say  as  the  first  point  I  want  to  make  this  afternoon,  in 
addition  to  what  I  said  yesterday,  requires  that  you 
should,  first  of  all,  see  to  the  elevation  of  character  of 
the  man  that  preaches.  He  it  is  who  ought  to  blossom. 
You  cannot  become  a  good  minister  simply  by  being 
expert  in  theology.  You  cannot  without  it,  either ;  the- 
ology must  be  practically  or  technically  learned.  But 
you  cannot  be  a  true  preacher  with  this  equipment 
alone.  A  dictionary  is  not  literature,  though  there  is  no  ^ 
literature  without  the  contents  of  the  dictionary  in  it. 
You  have  got  yourself  to  bring  up  to  the  ideal  of  the 
Xew  Testament.  A  part  of  your  preparation  for  the 
Christian  ministry  consists  in  such  a  ripening  of  your 
disposition  that  you  yourselves  shall  be  exemplars  of 
what  you  preach.  And  by  an  exemplar  I  do  not  mean 
simply  that  you  must  be  a  man  who  does  not  cheat  his 
neighbor,  or  who  unites  in  himself  all  the  scrupulosi- 
ties of  the  neighborhood ;  but  a  minister  ought  to  be 
entirely,  inside  and  out,  a  pattern  man;  not  a  pattern 
man  in  abstention,  but  a  man  of  grace,  generosity,  mag- 
nanimity, peaceableness,  sweetness,  though  of  high 
spirit,  and  self-defensory  power  when  required ;  a  man 
who  is  broad,  and  wide,  and  full  of  precious  contents. 
You  must  come  up  to  a  much  higher  level  than  com- 
mon manhood,  if  you  mean  to  be  a  preacher.  You  are 
not  to  be  a  needle  to  carry  a  thin  thread,  and  sew  up 


38 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


old  rags  all  your  life  long.  That  is  not  the  thing  to 
which  you  are  called.  You  are  called  to  be  men  of 
such  nobleness  and  largeness  and  gentleness,  so  Paul- 
ine, and  so  Christlike,  that  in  all  your  intercourse  with 
the  little  children,  and  with  the  young  people  of  your 
charge,  you  shall  produce  a  feeling  that  they  would 
rather  be  with  the  minister  than  any  gentleman  in  the 
State,  —  always  fresh,  always  various,  always  intent  on 
the  well-being  of  others,  well  understanding  them  and 
their  pleasures  and  sympathies,  promoting  enjoyment, 
promoting  instruction,  promoting  all  that  is  noble  in  its 
noblest  form  and  purest  Christlikeness,  —  that  is  what 
it  is  your  business  to  be. 

Now,  with  that  disposition  and  tendency  well  estab- 
lished in  yourselves,  and  with  sympathy  established 
between  yourselves  and  your  parishioners,  my  young 
friends,  you  will  never  lack  for  sermons.  If  your 
sermons  are  the  reproductions  simply  of  systematic 
theology,  you  will  lack  for  them,  —  thank  God  !  You 
may  have  sermons  on  theology,  on  technical  theology ; 
do  not  suppose  that  I  am  undervaluing  them.  I  am 
only  undervaluing  the  idolatry  of  them.  By  theology  I 
understand  simply  the  philosophy  of  religion,  —  accu- 
rate thinking,  systematic,  articulated  thinking;  and 
that  I  believe  in — in  its  place. 

But  this  I  say,  that  there  is  no  theology  in  the  world 
that  is  anything  more  than  an  instrument.  It  is  a 
mere  tool  to  work  with,  an  artillery  to  fight  with. 
J  Sermons  are  mere  tools ;  and  the  business  that  you 
have  in  hand  is  not  making  sermons,  or  preaching  ser- 
mons, —  it  is  samng  men.  Let  this  come  up  before  you 
80  frequently  that  it  shall  never  be  forgotten,  that  none 


QUALIFICATIONS  OF  THE  PREACHER. 


39 


of  these  things  should  gain  ascendency  over  this  prime 
controlling  element  of  your  lives,  that  you  are  to  save 
men. 

And  the  first  thing  you  have  to  do  is  to  present  to 
them  what  you  want  them  to  be.  That  is,  if  you  are  to 
preach  to  them  faith,  the  best  definition  you  can  give 
of  faith  is  to  exercise  it.  If  you  wish  to  teach  them 
the  nature  of  sympathy,  take  them  by  the  hand.  Talk 
with  the  young  men,  and  let  them  get  acquainted  with 
you  ;  and  they  will  soon  find  out  what  sympathy  means. 
If  you  would  explain  what  true  benevolence  is,  be  your- 
selves before  them  that  which  you  want  them  to  un- 
derstand and  imitate.    What  does  the  apostle  tell  us  ?  . 

Ye  are  our  epistles,  known  and  read  of  all  men,"  said 
Paul ;  and  he  could  say  it,  and  so  could  the  whole  primi- 
tive church,  and  so  can  we  yet  to-day.  If  it  were  a  good 
thing  to  do,  I  could  pick  out  to-day  the  examples  from 
my  church,  and  say,  "  This  is  what  I  mean  by  zeal  tem- 
pered with  prudence  ;  that  is  what  I  mean  by  the  sweet 
forbearance  of  love  ;  if  you  would  see  what  disinterested 
kindness  is,  see  there "  :  and  the  rest  would  all  say, 
"Amen."  That  is  certainly  the  law  of  the  pew,  and 
what  is  the  law  of  the  pew  ou^rht  to  be  the  law  of  the 
pulpit. 

Christian  ministers  are  to  be,  not  men  that  pray  four 
times  a  day,  and  wear  black  clothes  and  white  cravats 
and  walk  with  the  consciousness  that  the  whole  uni- 
verse is  looking  upon  them.  A  minister  is  a  live  man. 
He  is  a  large-hearted  man.  If  anywhere  else  he  is 
deficient,  he  cannot  be  deficient  in  heart. 

Some  one  asked  me  yesterday.  What  was  to  be  re- 
garded as  a  proper  call  to  the  ministry  ?    I  reply,  the 


40 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


possession  of  those  qualities  which  make  a  good  min- 
ister, —  good  sense,  good  nature,  good  health,  and  down- 
right moral  earnestness.  It  is  signally  true,  however, 
in  this  matter,  "  that  many  are  called,  but  few  are 
chosen/'  We  need  more  manhood  and  less  profes- 
sionalism. Scholarship  is  good  for  little  that  does  not 
enrich  manhood.  It  is  the  man  that  is  in  you  that 
preaches.  When  God  calls  he  begins  early,  and  calls 
through  your  parents.  "  Before  thou  camest  forth  out 
of  the  womb  I  sanctified  thee  ;  and  I  ordained  thee  a 
prophet  unto  the  nations."  Be  sure  that  it  is  yoit  that 
is  called.  It  is  evident  that  in  many  cases  some  one 
else  was  meant  when  certain  persons  heard  a  call. 
When  God  calls  very  loud  at  the  time  you  are  born, 
standing  at  the  door  of  life,  and  says,  "  Quarter  of  a 
man,  come  forth  ! "  that  man  is  not  for  the  ministry. 
"  Half  a  man,  come  forth !  "  no ;  that  will  not  do  for 
a  preacher.  "  Whole  man,  come  ! "  that  is  you.  The 
man  must  be  a  man,  and  a  full  man,  that  is  going  to  be 
a  true  Christian  minister,  and  especially  iii  those  things 
which  are  furthest  removed  from  selfishness  and  the 
nearest  in  alliance  with  true  divine  love.  ^JCNjiTliCwJ 


Sympathy  with  your  people,  insight  of  their  condi- 
tion, a  study  of  the  moral  remedies,  this  will  give  end- 
less diversity  and  fertility  to  your  subjects  for  sermons. 
He  that  preaches  out  of  a  system  of  theology  soon  runs 
his  round  and  returns  on  his  track.  He  that  preaches 
out  of  a  sympathy  with  living  men  will  sooner  exhaust 
the  ocean  or  the  clouds  of  water,  than  his  pulpit  of 
material.   It  is  true  that  subjects  mnst  be  studied;  that 


FERTILITY  IN  SUBJECTS. 


QUALIFICATIONS  OF  THE  PREACHER. 


41 


principles  must  be  traced,  that  facts  must  be  collected 
and  arranged,  that  books  must  be  studied,  that  systems 
must  be  understood.  But  all  this  is  far  back  of  preach- 
ing. It  is  general  preparation.  Out  of  the  stores  thus 
accumulated  one  must  select  for  sermons,  on  the  prin- 
ciple that  a  physician  selects  remedies  for  the  sick,  or 
stewards  provide  food  for  the  household,  with  an  eye 
on  the  persons  to  be  treated.  The  wants  of  your  people 
must  set  back  into  the  sermon,  and  give  to  it  depth, 
direction,  and  current.  Preaching  is  sometimes  word- 
brooding  ;  sometimes  it  is  a.  flash  of  light  to  those  in 
darkness;  sometimes  a  basket  of  golden  fruit  to  the 
hungry,  a  cordial  to  the  comfortless,  —  all  to  all, — just 
as  Christ  is  All  in  All !  You  will  very  soon  come,  in  \ 
your  parish  life,  to  the  habit  of  thinking  more  about 
your  people  and  what  you  shall  do  for  them  than  about 
your  sermons  and  what  you  shall  talk  about.  That  is 
a  good  sign.  J ust  as  soon  as  you  find  yourself  think- 
ing, on  Monday  or  Tuesday,  "  Now,  here  are  these  per- 
sons, or  this  class,"  —  you  run  over  your  list  and  study 
your  people,  —  "  what  shall  I  do  for  them  ? "  you  will 
get  some  idea  what  you  need  to  do.  Sometimes  it 
is  to  call  men  from  their  sins ;  sometimes  to  repress 
the  malign ;  sometimes  to  encourage  hope  in  the  faint- 
hearted ;  sometimes  to  instruct  the  understanding ;  some- 
times to  broaden  men's  knowledge,  and  move  them  off* 
of  their  prejudices.  There  are  a  thousand  things  to  do.  • 
^  A  preacher  is  a  carpenter,  building  a  house.  You 
ought  to  know,  as  the  house  goes  up,  what  you  shall 
do  next.  Or,  if  it  be  built,  and  you  are  to  furnish  the 
house,  you  are  to  determine  what  is  to  be  its  furni- 
ture,  and  how  distributed.    You  will  know  that  this 


42 


LECTURES  ON  PKEACHING. 


room  is  not  lighted,  or  that  room  is  not  warmed. 
Wherever  you  go  among  your  people,  you  will,  to  use 
^the  mercantile  figure,  "be  taking  account  of  stock." 
That  will  suggest  an  endless  number  of  subjects,  and 
these  subjects  will  turn  you  back  to  the  New  Testa- 
ment to  see  what  you  can  find  there  ;  and  that  will 
send  you  back  to  Nature,  where  you  will  see  what  is 
in  God's  other  great  revelation. 

In  this  way  you  will  grow  fertile.  You  will  not  be 
troubled  in  looking  for  subjects  on  which  to  write  ser- 
mons ;  your  only  trouble  will  be  to  find  opportunities 
for  delivering  sermons.  I  know  that  some  men  are 
more  fertile  than  others ;  but  a  sympathetic  study  of 
human  life  is  a  remedy  for  uniform  theology. 

STYLE. 

The  effect  of  this  notion  of  preaching  —  preaching 
from  sympathy  with  living  men  rather  than  from  sym- 
pathy with  any  particular  system  of  thought  —  upon 
the  preacher's  style  will  be  very  great.  I  have  often 
heard  ministers  in  private  conversation,  and  said  to  my- 
self, Would  to  God  you  would  do  so  in  the  pulpit !  " 
But  the  moment  they  are  in  the  pulpit  they  fall  into 
their  scholastic,  artificial  style,  which  runs  through  the 
whole  ministerial  life.  A  man  will  talk  to  you  naturally, 
and  say,  "  I  do  wish  you  would  come  down  to-night ; 
the  young  people  had  the  promise  of  your  coming,  and 
why  won't  you  come  ?  "  —  sweet,  natural,  pleading,  per- 
suasive. Yet  he  will  go  into  the  desk,  where  prayer  is  to 
be  made  in  a  persuasive  tone,  and  he  will  begin  address- 
ing the  Lord  with  a  drawling,  whining  falsetto  in  voice, 
and  a  worse  falsetto  in  morals.    He  has  thrown  himself 


QUALIFICATIONS  OF  THE  PREACHER. 


43 


out  of  his  proper  self  into  a  ministerial  self, —  a  very 
different  thing  !  A  man  will  stop  you  in  the  street  and 
discourse  with  you  there,  and  be  just  as  limber  and  affable 
in  his  sentences,  just  as  curt  and  direct  and  crisp  and 
simple  in  conversational  vernacular  as  any  one  ;  and  yet 
in  the  pulpit,  two-thirds  of  what  he  has  to  say  will  be 
Latin  periphrases  w^oven  together ;  three  members  on 
one  side  the  sentence-pivot,  balanced  by  three  members 
on  the  other,  and  that  recurring  all  the  time.  This  style 
is  false  to  everything  but  books.  It  may  be  all  in  sym- 
pathy with  them ;  but  no  man  in  earnest,  talking  to  his 
fellow-men  with  a  purpose,  falls  into  that  artificial  style. 
>^^^^^''^he  man  who  preaches  from  the  heart  to  the  heart  can 
hardly  help  preaching  so  that  there  shall  be  a  natural- 
ness in  his  style,  and  that  will  be  the  best  style  for  him. 
I  have  known  men  who  would  be  excellent  ministers, 
if  it  were  not,  first,  for  their  lives  ;  secondly,  for  their 
theology  ;  and  thirdly,  for  their  style. 

QUALIFICATIONS  FOR  THE  PROFESSION. 

One  other  point.  I  was  asked  yesterday  if  I  would 
say  a  few  words  as  to  "  the  call."  I  have  already  in- 
dicated a  word  as  to  the  call  for  the  ministry.  Practi- 
cally, it  acts  in  this  way.  Young  men  are  sometimes 
brought  up  to  it,  as  I  was.  I  never  had  any  choice 
about  it.  My  father  had  eight  sons.  Only  two  of 
them  ever  tried  to  get  away  from  preaching ;  and  they 
did  not  succeed.  The  other  six  went  right  into  the 
ministry  just  as  naturally  as  they  went  into  manhood. 
Therefore,  so  far  as  personal  experience  is  concerned,  I 
have  nothing  to  say. 

I  have  observed,  however,  in  classes  in  college,  and 


44 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


elsewhere,  that  where  young  men  have  not  been 
brought  up  to  believe  all  through  their  childhood  that 
they  were  to  be  ministers,  they  generally  have  the 
question  brought  to  their  minds  in  some  serious  mood, 
whether  they  ought  to  go  into  the  law,  or  into  medicine, 
or  to  be  civil  engineers,  or  whether  they  ought  to  go 
into  the  ministry.  They  think  about  it  a  good  while, 
and  at  last  it  is  borne  in  upon  them,  without  any  special 
reason,  that  they  had  better  preach ;  and  they  resolve 
to  do  it.  These  are  young  men  who  ordinarily  cannot 
form  judgments  ;  they  drift.  When  you  look  beyond 
this  number,  what  are  some  of  the  elements  that  fit  a 
man  for  the  life  of  a  true  Christian  minister  ? 

I  say,  first,  the  preacher  ought  to  be  a  man  who  is 
fruitful  in  moral  ideas,  has  a  genius  for  them,  as  dis- 
tinguished from  every  other  kind  of  ideas.  We  know 
what  it  is  to  have  a  genius  for  arithmetical  or  mathe- 
matical ideas,  for  musical  ideas,  or  for  aesthetic  or  art 
ideas.  A  tendency  in  the  direction  of  moral  ideas, 
whether  developed  or  susceptible  of  being  developed, 
is  a  prime  quality. 

A  second  quality  fitting  a  man  for  the  Christian  min- 
istry, is  the  power  of  moving  men.  If  a  man  is  cold 
and  unsympathetic,  perhaps  he  may  be  able  to  make 
himself  over  ;  but  if  he  cannot,  he  had  better  not  go  into 
the  ministry.  It  will  be  a  hard  task  for  such  a  one.  But 
a  man  that  has  quick  sympathy,  apprehensiveness  of 
men,  intuition  of  human  nature,  has  eminent  qualifica- 
tions for  a  minister.  Every  merchant,  who  is  a  true 
merchant,  has  to  know  how  to  deal  with  his  customers. 
The  moment  they  come  into  the  store  he  reads  them. 
A  good  jury  lawyer  must  have  the  same  aptitude.  We 


QUALIFICATIONS  OF  THE  PREACHER. 


45 


are  all  the  time  obliged  to  use  these  qualities,  the  knowl- 
edge of  men,  the  power  of  managing  men.  A  real  mas- 
ter of  men,  when  one  draws  near  to  him,  forms  a  judg- 
ment of  the  new-comer  just  as  instinctively  and  as 
quickly  as  of  a  locomotive  or  a  horse.  (Do  you  ever  see 
a  fine  horse  go  by  and  not  take  his  points  ?  Then  your 
education  has  been  neglected.)  A  minister  who  w^alks 
down  a  whole  street  and  sees  nobody,  who  only  looks 
inside  of  himself,  is  but  half  a  minister.  Self-absorp- 
tion is  permissible  once  in  a  while ;  but  the  aptitude 
to  deal  with  men,  to  incite  the  springs  of  human 
thought  and  feeling,  the  knowledge  of  how  to  move 
men,  —  that  is  to  be  maintained  m  power  only  by  in- 
cessant practice  and  observation ;  but  if  you  have  that 
in  connection  Avith  the  genius  for  moral  ideas,  you 
have  two  qualifications. 

A  third  qualification  is  w^hat  I  may  call  living  hy  faith, 
the  sense  of  the  infinite  and  the  invisible  ;  the  sense  of 
something  else  besides  what  we  see  with  the  physical 
eyes  ;  the  sense  of  God,  of  eternity,  and  of  heaven.  If 
I  were  asked  what  had  been  in  my  own  ministry  the 
unseen  source  of  more  help  and  more  power  than  any- 
thing else,  I  should  say  that  my  mother  gave  to  me  a 
temperament  that  enabled  me  to  see  the  unseeable  and 
to  know  the  unknowable,  to  realize  things  not  created 
as  if  they  were,  and  oftentimes  far  more  than  if  they 
were,  present  to  my  outward  senses.  The  rain  comes  out 
of  the  great  ether  above.  You  see  nothing  of  it  to-night, 
though  it  is  there,  and  descends  to-morrow  on  the  grass 
and  the  flowers;  so  out  of  the  invisible  realm  of  the 
spirit  within  which  you  are  living  under  the  crystalline 
dome  of  eternity,  populous  with  love  and  law  and  truth. 


46 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


you  will  have  a  sense  of  the  vastness  and  magnitude  of 
the  sphere  in  which  you  are  working  which  will  descend 
upon  your  life  with  fructifying  power. 
-  Another  thing  :  you  should  have  good  health  ;  and  a 
fair  portion  of  common  sense,  which  is  the  only  quality 
that  I  think  never  is  increased  by  education ;  that  is 
born  in  a  man,  —  or,  if  it  is  not,  that  is  the  end.  But 
if,  with  those  other  qualities,  you  have  good  sense  and 
good  vigorous  health,  and  withal  are  of  a  good  social 
disposition,  you  have  the  qualifications  out  of  which  a 
minister  can  be  fashioned. 

There  is  one  thing  more.  I  do  not  think  that  any 
man  has  a  right  to  become  a  Christian  minister,  who  is 
not  willing  and  thankful  to  be  the  least  of  all  God's  ser- 
vants and  to  labor  in  the  humblest  sphere.  If  you  would 
come  into  the  Christian  ministry,  hoping  to  preach  such 
a  sermon  as  Eobert  Hall  would  have  preached,  you  are 
not  fit  to  come  in  at  all.  If  you  have  a  deep  sense 
of  the  sweetness  of  the  service  of  Christ ;  if  the  blood 
of  the  redemption  is  really  in  your  heart  and  in  your 
blood ;  if  you  have  tasted  what  gratitude  means,  and 
what  love  means,  and  if  heaven  is  such  a  reality  to  you 
that  all  that  lies  between  youth  and  manhood  is  but  a 
step  toward  heaven;  if  you  think  that  the  saving  of  a 
single  soul  would  be  worth  the  work  of  your  whole  life, 
you  have  a  call,  and  a  very  loud  call.  A  call  to  the 
ministry  is  along  the  line  of  humility,  and  love,  and 
sympathy,  and  good  sense,  and  natural  aspirations  to- 
ward God. 

I  recollect  when  I  returned  from  the  first  revival  in 
which  I  ever  worked.  I  had  been  at  Indianapolis  be- 
tween one  and  two  years,  and  there  had  been  no  revival 


QUALIFICATIONS  OF  THE  PEEACHER. 


47 


(and  I  had  never  been  in  one  since  I  was  a  boy).  I  went 
out,  on  Brother  Jewett's  call,  from  Indianapolis  to  Terre 
Haute  ;  and  I  w^orked  there  three  weeks  in  a  revival 
until  my  heart  was  on  fire  ;  and  it  rained  a  stream  of 
prayer  all  the  way  home  from  Terre  Haute  to  Indian- 
apolis. It  was  like  an  Aurora  Borealis,  I  have  no  doubt, 
ray  upon  ray,  for  that  whole  distance,  if  angels  could 
have  seen  it.  It  was  in  that  feeling  all  the  way,  "  Lord, 
slay  me  if  thou  wilt ;  but  I  will  be  slain,  or  will  have 
life  and  salvation  among  my  people."  On  Sunday  I  gave 
notice  that  I  would  preach  every  night  that  week.  We 
had  a  dingy  lecture-room  in  my  church  that  would  hold 
about  two  hundred  people.  I  preached  Monday  night, 
and  we  had  a  storm  ;  Tuesday  night  it  rained  again,  and 
when  I  called  upon  any  who  were  awakened  to  remain, 
no  one  stayed  ;  and  I  said,  It  makes  no  difference  ;  if 
the  Lord  wishes  it  to  be  so,  I  do ! "  On  Wednesday 
night  I  preached  again,  with  more  power,  and  called  for 
inquirers  at  the  close ;  one  poor  little  thin  servant-girl 
stopped  !  She  smelt  of  the  kitchen  and  looked  kitchen 
all  over.  When  I  dismissed  the  congregation,  my  first 
feeling,  I  know,  as  I  went  toward  her,  was  one  of  disap- 
pointment. I  said  to  myself  that  after  so  much  work 
it  was  too  bad.  It  was  just  a  glance,  an  arrow  whichf- 
the  Devil  shot  at  me,  but  which  went  past.  The  next 
minute  I  had  an  overwhelming  revulsion  in  my  soul ; 
and  I  said  to  myself,  "If  God  pleases,  I  will  work  for 
the  poorest  of  his  creatures.  I  will  work  for  the  heart 
of  a  vagabond,  if  I  am  permitted  to  do  it,  and  bring 
him  to  Christ  Jesus."  I  felt  it;  and  I  thanked  God 
that  night  for  that  girl's  staying.  He  paid  me  the 
next  night,  for  two  of  my  sweetest  children  —  not  my 


48 


LECTURES  ON  PHEACHINa 


own,  but  they  were  like  my  own  to  me  —  stopped  on 
the  next  night,  and  after  that  the  work  went  on. 

If,  therefore,  you  feel  willing  to  work  for  Christ's 
sake,  for  the  sake  of  eternity,  for  the  love  that  you 
have  for  the  intrinsic  sweetness  of  the  work  of  the 
ministry,  the  moulding  of  men  and  making  them  better 
and  helping  them  upward;  if  this  is  itself  sweet  and 
pleasant  to  you ;  if  you  are  moved  to  do  it  in  low 
places,  without  renown,  and  are  willing  to  take  your 
crown  hereafter  for  it,  you  are  called,  and  there  is  no 
doubt  about  it.  But  if  you  want  only  this,  —  to  be  very 
eloquent  men,  and  to  watch  the  eloquence  of  others  ;  or 
if  you  want  to  have  a  big  church,  with  a  big  salary 
behind  it,  and  if  that  is  your  call  to  the  ministry,  stay 
away.  You  may  be  called,  but  it  was  not  the  Lord  that 
called  you ;  it  was  the  Devil. 

Don't  come  from  pride,  but  come  from  a  love  for  the 
work;  and  then,  let  me  tell  you,  your  work  will  be 
music.  I  hear  ministers  talk  about  their  cares  and 
their  burdens.  There  are  cares  and  burdens,  but  no 
more  than  there  are  discords  in  Beethoven's  sympho- 
nies ;  and  your  work  will  be  as  sweet  and  as  musical 
as  his  symphonies  are.  Working  for  men  !  There  is 
nothing  so  congenial.  It  is  the  only  business  on  earth 
that  I  know  of,  excepting  the  mother's  business,  that  is 
clean  all  the  way  through ;  because  it  is  using  superior 
faculties,  superior  knowledge,  not  to  take  advantage  of 
men,  but  to  lift  them  up  and  cleanse  them,  to  mould 
them,  to  fashion  them,  to  give  them  life,  that  you  may 
present  them  before  God. 

I  am  done,  unless  you  wish  to  ask  questions.  I  am 
open  to-day  and  every  day  for  them. 


(itJALIFiCATiONS  OF  THE  PKEACHlilR. 


49 


QUESTIONS  AND  ANSWERS. 

Q.  How  shall  one  get  the  power  of  adaptation  of  one's  self  to 
others,  and  how  shall  he  increase  it  ? 

Mr.  Beecher.  —  If  you  were  taking  drawing  lessons, 
and  attempting  to  portray  the  human  face,  but  with  so 
little  success  as  to  make  it  very  doubtful  what  you  were 
trying  to  do ;  and  if  you  should  look  up  to  your  teacher 
and  say  to  him,  How  shall  I  increase  my  ability  to 
draw  faces  ?  "  what  would  he  say  to  you  ?  Practice,  — 
practice,  —  that  will  do  it."  Preaching  is  in  one  sense 
an  art ;  not  in  the  ignoble  sense.  It  is  a  thing  to  be 
learned,  both  in  general  principles  and  in  practical  de- 
tails. It  is  learned  by  some,  as  every  trade  is,  much 
more  easily  than  by  others.  It  is  learned  by  continu- 
ous trying  and  practising.  A  young  minister  ought 
not  to  be  discouraged  if  he  works  three  or  four  years  in 
a  parish  before  he  really  begins  to  get  the  control  of 
things. 

Q.  Is  it  a  good  way  to  learn  to  move  men  by  learning  to  move 
children  ? 

Mb.  Beecher.  —  Yes  ;  any  way  ;  not  merely  with 
children,  but  with  everybody  else.  You  are  all  of  you 
in  society.  You  have  class-mates,  room-mates.  You 
can  begin  practising  a  good  deal  of  the  ministry  now. 
Suppose,  in  a  thing  in  which  you  have  been  accustomed 
to  make  your  room-mate  give  up  to  you,  after  this  you 
give  up  to  him.  Suppose  you  take  some  of  the  familiar 
Scriptural  texts,  "  Look  not  every  man  on  his  own 
things,  but  every  man  also  on  the  things  of  another  " ; 
"  In  honor  preferring  one  another  "    test  yourselves  by 


50 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


that.  See  if  you  can  in  all  cases  give  up,  one  to  an- 
other; give  those  around  you  the  advantage  of  every 
opening,  and  hold  yourselves  hack.  Try  all  these  tests. 
These  are  admirable  principles  ;  and  if  you  do  not  learn 
adaptation  by  practising  the  Christian  virtues,  then  I 
am  mistaken.  What  is  minister  ?  It  is  servant ;  serving 
men  in  love  is  ministering. 

Q.  What  is  the  occasion  of  the  tendency  toward  short  pastor- 
ates in  churches  nowadays  ? 

Mr.  Beecher.  —  Largely,  I  think,  the  divine  mercy 
toward  the  parish.  I  do  not  mean  by  that  that  I  con- 
sider a  short  pastorate  a  desirable  thing,  provided  the 
conditions  of  long  pastorates  are  complied  with  ;  but  if 
a  man  has  only  a  little  in  him,  and  is  not  going  to  have 
any  more,  I  think  his  removal  is  a  great  mercy  to  his 
parish.  When  the  cup  is  empty,  it  would  better  be  re- 
moved and  another  one  filled  and  brought  in  its  place. 
Where  one  has  breadth ;  where  he  will  give  himself  to 
the  work  of  the  ministry,  in  public  and  in  his  study 
both  ;  if  the  study  and  the  street  work  into  each  other 
all  the  way,  he  has  a  true  ministry,  and  he  has  that  in 
him  which  will  last.  A  long  pastorate  has  some  ad- 
vantages that  cannot  be  over-estimated.  But  shallow 
men,  w^ho  are  sometimes  called  broad  men,  ought  to 
have  short  pastorates.  If  you  take  the  Erie  Canal,  and 
without  increasing  the  amount  of  water,  remove  one 
bank  to  a  distance  of  half  a  mile,  you  will  broaden  it 
very  much,  but  you  will  have  perhaps  only  a  quarter 
of  an  inch  depth  of  water.  A  great  many  men  spread 
themselves  out,  and  broaden,  in  that  w^ay,  and  grow 
shallower  and  shallower.    Such  men  soon  evaporate. 


QUALIFICATIONS  OF  THE  PREACHER. 


51 


Q.  Some  of  us  expect  to  spend  several  months  this  summer  in 
preaching.  Would  you  encourage  us  to  preach  in  the  revival 
style  the  very  first  thing,  and  keep  on  right  through? 

Mr.  Beecher.  —  If  you  mean  by  the  revival  style, 
that  which  is  addressed  exclusively  to  the  feelings,  I 
should  say  Xo,  not  in  all  cases.  You  may  be  thrown 
among  a  set  of  mountain  men,  where  your  preaching 
will  be  a  great  deal  more  out  of  the  pulpit  than  in  it. 
Paul,  you  know,  wove  tent-cloth ;  and  I  have  no  doubt 
that  when  he  sat  down  with  the  common  people  and 
worked  with  them,  he  was  preparing  to  preach  to  them. 
The  first  thing  you  want  in  a  neighborhood  is  to  get 
m  rapport  with  the  people.  You  want  to  get  their 
confidence,  to  induce  them  to  listen  to  you.  It  is  a 
part  of  the  intuition  of  a  true  preacher  to  know  how  to 
get  at  men.  He  looks  at  a  man  as  Hobbs  looked  at  a 
lock,  who  always  asked  himself,    How  can  I  pick  it  ? " 

When  I  see  a  man  I  instinctively  divide  him  up,  and 
ask  myself.  How  much  has  he  of  the  animal,  how  much 
of  the  spiritual,  and  how  much  of  the  intellectual  ? 
And  what  is  his  intellect,  perceptive  or  reflective  ?  Is  ^ 
he  ideal,  or  apathetic,  or  literal  ?  And  I  instinctively 
adapt  myself  to  him. 

There  is  no  mystery  about  this ;  it  is  simple  enough. 
You  all  adapt  yourselves  in  just  that  way.  You 
never  treat  an  ox  in  any  other  way  than  as  an  ox. 
You  never  treat  it  as  if  it  were  a  horse.  But  that  same 
process  by  which  you  adapt  yourselves  unconsciously 
to  the  more  apparent  and  superficial  aspects  of  nature 
can  be  carried  further  ;  you  can  adapt  yourself  to  the 
disposition  of  another,  and  know  how  to  take  him, 
where  to  take  him,  what  will  offend,  and  what  will  not 
offend. 


52 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


Q.  How  would  you  influence  a  contrary  man  who  stayed 
away  from  church  for  a  month  ? 

Mr.  Beecher. —  Very  likely  you  labored  with  him 
too  long.    There  are  a  great  many  ways. 

There  is  no  one  way  of  working  upon  men.  You 
must  try  them.  In  fact,  you  have  got  to  try  men  as 
J  you  try  fish.  You  put  on  one  fly,  and  when  you  cast, 
the  trout  don't  rise.  You  whip  it  hither  and  thither  a 
little  while  and  try  it.  Perhaps  it  is  the  wrong  time  of 
day.  You  change  the  fly  and  try  again.  You  come 
another  hour  of  day ;  and  if  he  won't  rise,  you 
come  to-morrow  and  try  again,  and  by  and  by  you 
will  catch  him  ;  but  very  likely  it  will  be  by  what 
you  do  not  look  for  at  all,  and  he  will  bite,  and 
you  hook  him  unexpectedly.  You  are  not  to  sup- 
pose you  can  bring  men  down  as  you  would  go  into 
the  woods  to  fell  a  tree.  Some  men  require  a  good 
deal  of  diplomacy  and  management,  and  it  takes  a 
good  deal  of  time.  How  long  was  it  before  the  Lord 
himself  managed  you  ?  How  long  God's  providence 
waits  for  us  !  Many  are  the  influences  brought  to  bear 
upon  us  before  we  are  subdued.  You  must  not  be  in  a 
hurry  or  impatient.  You  have  not  lost  a  man  because 
he  does  n't  take  the  truth  the  first  time. 


III. 


THE  PEESONAL  ELEMENT  IN  ORATOEY. 

February  7,  1872. 

SHALL  talk  to  you  to-day  on  the  general 
subject  of  Personalism,  as  affecting  your  suc- 
cess in  reaching  men  with  the  truth,  —  in- 
cluding various  modes  of  bringing  yourselves 
to  bear  on  others,  from  the  pulpit,  and  the  helps  and 
hindrances  in  doing  so,  both  on  the  mental  and  spiritual 
side,  and  on  the  physical  or  material  side. 

Ko  man  ever  preaches,  all  the  time  thinking  of  pro- 
ducing specific  effects,  without  very  soon  being  made 
conscious  that  men  are  so  different  from  each  other  that 
no  preaching  will  be  continuously  effective  which  is  not 
endlessly  various  ;  and  that  not  for  the  sake  of  arresting 
attention,  but  because  all  men  do  not  take  in  moral 
teaching  by  the  same  sides  of  their  minds.  I  remember 
when  it  was  the  custom,  and  it  was  supposed  a  proper 
thing  to  do,  for  ministers  to  hold  up  a  regular  system  of 
moral  truth,  sermon  by  sermon,  and  chapter  by  chapter, 
until  the  received  average  views  of  the  day  had  been 
spread  out  before  the  congregation ;  and  then  it  was 
hoped  that  a  Divine  Sovereignty  would  apply  these 
truths  to  men's  hearts.     Experience  ought  to  have 


54 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


shown  chem  that  there  is  a  class  of  hearers  in  every 
intelligent  community  that  will  never  be  led  except 
through  their  reason.  Tliey  will  require  that  the  path 
be  laid  down  for  them,  and  that  they  see  it  before  they 
follow.  Tliey  will  not  be  content  to  receive  the  truth  in 
any  other  mode  than  by  the  idea-form.  If  they  cannot 
get  it  in  one  church,  they  will  go  to  another ;  and  if  still 
they  cannot  find  it,  they  will  go  nowhere.  Yet,  if  you 
shape  your  preaching,  as  often  literary  men  in  the  pul- 
pit are  accustomed  to  do,  to  the  distinctively  intellectual 
men  in  the  community,  you  will  very  soon  fill  them  full 
and  starve  the  rest  of  your  congregation  ;  because,  right 
alongside  of  them,  there  are  natures  just  as  noble  as 
theirs,  but  not  accustomed  to  receive  their  food  through 
the  mouth  of  reason,  except  in  an  incidental  and  indi- 
rect way.  We  all  use  our  reason,  more  or  less,  in  all 
processes  ;  but  then  there  are  a  great  many  persons  who 
want  the  truth  presented  in  emotive  forms. 

DIFFERENT  CLASSES  OF  HEARERS. 

The  hard  reasoner  says,  No  tears  for  me  ;  don't  color 
your  preaching ;  I  want  it  pure  as  the  beams  of  light, 
f  and  as  transparent ;  and  the  calmer  and  more  inexor- 
ably logical  its  propositions,  and  the  more  mathematical 
its  proof,  the  better  I  like  it."  But  there  are  in  any 
community  probably  six  to  one  who  will  watch  for  the 
emotional  and  impassioned  part  of  the  sermon,  saying 
"  That  is  the  preaching  I  want ;  I  can  understand  what 
I  feel."  They  are  fed  by  their  hearts.  They  have  as 
much  right  to  be  fed  by  their  hearts  as  the  others  have 
to  be  fed  by  their  reason. 

You  should  strive,  in  setting  the  table  in  your  church 


THE  PERSONAL  ELEMENT  IN  ORATORY. 


55 


^vJierever  you  may  be,  to  do  as  the  hotel  proprietor  does. 
He  never  says  to  himself,  "  What  dish  do  I  like  best  ? 
^ —  that  will  I  put  on  the  table  "  ;  or,  "  What  dishes  do 
Lawyer  A  and  Physician  B  like  best  ? "  He  spreads 
his  tables  for  the  benefit  of  the  community  at  large, — 
something  for  everybody;  and  he  does  wisely.  The 
man  who  means  to  catch  men,  and  to  catch  all  of  them, 
must  prepare  bait  for  those  that  bite  purely  by  the  un- 
derstanding, and  just  as  much  bait  for  those  that  bite 
largely  by  their  emotions.  But  there  is  another  class. 
I  recollect  my  dear  old  father  talking  about  persons  that 
worshipped  God  in  clouds  and  saw  the  hand  of  God  in 
beauty.  He  would  say,  "  It  is  all  moonshine,  my  son, 
with  no  doctrine  nor  edification  nor  sanctity  in  it  at 
all,  and  I  despise  it."  I  never  knew  my  father  to  look 
at  a  landscape  in  his  life,  unless  he  saw  pigeons  or 
squirrels  in  it.  I  have  seen  him  watch  the  stream,  but 
it  was,  invariably,  to  know  if  there  were  pickerel  or 
trout  in  it.  He  was  a  hunter,  every  inch  ;  but  I  never 
could  discern  that  he  had  an  sesthetic  element  in  him, 
so  far  as  relates  to  pure  beauty.  Sublimit)^  he  felt. 
Whatever  was  grand  he  appreciated  very  keenly.  I  do 
not  think  that  he  ever  looked  at  one  building  in  his  life, 
except  the  Girard  College.  When  he  came  suddenly 
upon  that,  and  it  opened  up  to  him,  he  looked  up  and 
admired  it ;  and  I  always  marvelled  at  that,  as  a  little 
instance  of  grace  in  him. 

That  is  laughable  to  you,  I  have  no  doubt ;  and  since 
these  addresses  are  the  most  familiar  of  all  talks,  I  will 
give  you  a  little  more  of  my  amusing  experience  with 
him  at  home.  When  he  became  an  old  man  he  lived 
six  months  in  my  family,  and  became  during  that  time 


56 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


much  interested  in  the  pictures  hanging  on  the  walla 
of  the  house.  One  which  particularly  attracted  his  at- 
tention,  and  with  which  he  was  greatly  pleased,  repie 
sented  a  beautiful  lake,  with  hunters  ensconced  behind 
trees,  shooting  at  ducks  on  the  lake.  He  would  look 
at  that  picture  every  day,  and  I,  not  thinking  of  the 
sportsmen,  but  only  of  the  charming  landscape,  said  tc 
myself,  "  Well,  it  is  good  to  see  him  breaking  from  the 
spell  of  some  of  his  old  ideas,  and,  now  that  he  has  be- 
come old,  to  see  these  fine  gifts  growing  and  coming  out, 
—  to  behold  him  ripening  into  the  aesthetic  element 
in  this  way."  One  day  I  stood  behind  him,  as  he  was 
looking  at  the  picture,  unconscious  of  my  presence. 
Said  he,  "He  must  have  hit  one,  two,  three  —  and,  I 
guess,  four!" 

Now,  it  is  not  strange  that  a  person  should,  under 
such  circumstances,  having  no  appreciation  of  the  beau- 
tiful in  his  nature,  laugh  to  scorn  the  idea  that  beauty 
could  ever  lead  a  man  to  God,  or  bring  him  within  the 
influence  of  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  or  incline  him  to 
climb  from  a  selfish  to  a  spiritual  life  ;  but,  I  tell  you 
there  is  many  a  mouth  that  requires  to  be  fed  by  the 
aesthetic  element. 

It  is  not  a  vain  thing  to  hear  men  say  that  they  feel 
more  like  worshipping  in  music  than  in  any  other  thing. 
The  best  organist  in  America  for  extemporaneous  music 
is  Mr.  John  Zundel.  When  he  was  converted,  and 
came  into  the  church,  he  said  to  me  one  morning,  "  It 
seems  that  everything  in  the  world  is  new.  Last  night 
I  prayed,  but  not  as  you  do."  I  asked  him  what  he 
meant,  and  he  answered,  "  I  do  not  speak  my  prayers." 
"  Well,"  asked  I, how  do  you  pray  ?  "    "  On  the  pianq 


THE  PERSONAL  ELEMENT        ORATORY.  57 

always/'  said  he.  That  was  true.  He  wouk^  sit  dowp 
at  his  piano,  when  in  a  worshipping  mood,  shut  his  eyes 
and  pray  with  his  fingers.  I  did  not  wonder  at  it  wheu 
I  heard  his  music. 

When  I  entered  the  first  gallery  of  any  magnitude 
in  Europe,  it  was  a  revelation  to  me ;  I  was  deeply 
affected.  It  was  at  the  Luxembourg.  I  had  never 
imagined  such  a  wealth  of  glory.  The  sense  of  'exhil- 
aration was  so  transcendent  that  I  felt  as  if  I  could 
not  stay  in  the  body.  I  was  filled  with  that  super- 
sensitiveness  of  supernal  feeling  which  is  true  wor- 
ship ;  and  I  never  seemed  to  myself  so  near  the  gate 
of  heaven.  I  never  felt  capable  of  so  nearly  under- 
standing my  Master ;  never  in  all  my  life  was  I  con- 
scious of  such  an  earnestness  to  do  his  work,  and  to  do 
it  better  than  I  did,  as  while  under  the  all-pervading 
influence  of  that  gallery  of  beauty. 

I  find  a  great  many  persons  who  say,  "  I  do  not  much 
enjoy  going  to  church,  but  if  I  am  permitted  to  wander 
out  into  the  fields,  along  the  fringes  of  the  forests,  and 
to  hear  the  birds  sing,  to  watch  the  cattle,  and  to  look  at 
the  shadows  on  the  hills,  I  am  sure  it  makes  me  a  bet- 
ter man."  Some  others,  like  my  dear  old  father,  would 
say,  "  That  is  all  moonshine  ;  there  is  nothing  in  it,  no 
thought,  no  truth,  and  no  doctrine  of  edification."  But 
there  is  truth  in  it.  There  are  minds  that  open  to 
spiritual  things  through  that  side  of  their  nature  more 
readily  and  easily  than  through  any  other.  This  should 
be  recognized. 

Then  there  is  another  class.    There  are  a  great  many 
persons  who  are  keenly  sensitive  on  the  side  of  imagi-  ^ 
nation,  and  they  never  really  receive  anything  as  true, 

3* 


58 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


until  the  fact  or  principle  is,  as  it  were,  enveloped  in  a 
little  liaze.  They  need  the  mystic  element.  They  do 
not  want  sharp  outlines.  There  is  something  in  mys- 
tery which  is  attractive  to  them.  And  yet  some  preach- 
ers insist  that  truth  should  be  set  before  all  men  in  its 
most  accurate  and  exact  form.  You  might  just  as  well 
attempt  to  reduce  the  clouds  to  triangles  and  circles,  in 
order  to  mathematically  demonstrate  their  beauty  to  the 
eye  of  an  artist. 

HOW  TO  MEET  DIFFERING  MINDS. 

Now,  in  order  to  reach  and  help  all  these  varying 
phases  of  your  congregation,  you  must  take  human 
nature  as  you  find  it,  in  its  broad  range.  Under- 
stand this,  that  the  same  law  which  led  the  Apostle  to 
make  himself  a  Greek  to  the  Greeks,  and  a  Jew  to  the 
Jews,  and  to  put  himself  under  the  law  with  those 
who  were  under  the  law ;  and  that  same  everlasting 
good  sense  of  conformity  in  these  things,  for  the  sake 
of  taking  hold  of  men  where  they  can  be  reached,  and 
lifting  them  up,  requires  you  to  study  human  nature  as 
it  is,  and  not  as  people  tell  you  it  ought  to  be.  If  a  maiu^^ 
can  be  saved  by  pure  intellectual  preaching,  let  him 
have  it.  If  others  require  a  predominance  of  emotion, 
provide  that  for  them.  If  by  others  the  truth  is  taken 
more  easily  through  the  imagination,  give  it  to  them  in 
forms  attractive  to  the  imagination.  If  there  are  still 
others  who  demand  it  in  the  form  of  facts  and  rules,  see 
that  tliey  have  it  in  that  form.  Take  men  as  it  has 
pleased  God  to  make  them  ;  and  let  your  preaching,  so 
far  as  concerns  the  selection  of  material,  and  the  mode 
and  method  by  which  you  are  presenting  the  truth,  fol- 


THE  PERSONAL  ELEMENT  IN  ORATORY. 


59 


low  the  wants  of  the  persons  themselves,  and  not  simply 
the  measure  of  your  own  minds. 

AN  EASY  DANGER. 

Too  often  men  find  a  certain  facility  in  themselves  in 
single  directions,  and  they  confine  their  preaching  to 
that  particular  line.  The  consequence  is,  their  congre- 
gations are  very  soon  classified.  One  sort  of  a  preacher 
gets  one  sort  of  people,  and  another  sort  gets  another 
sort  of  people,  instead  of  all  churches  having  some  of 
every  kind  of  mind  in  them.  They  become  segregated 
and  arranged  according  to  ministers.  That  is  very  bad 
for  the  churches. 

It  is  a  good  thing  for  a  village  that  it  has  but  one 
church  for  all  the  people  ;  where  the  rich  and  poor,  the 
cultured  and  the  unlettered,  have  to  come  together,  and 
learn  to  bear  with  each  other.  This  is  a  part  of  that 
discipline  and  attrition  which  smooths  and  polishes 
men,  and  makes  them  better,  if  there  is  grace  to  do  it. 
But  in  the  cities  you  will  find  that  churches  are  classi- 
fied ;  and  in  the  city  of  New  York  I  can  point  out  to 
you  many  a  church  in  which  there  are  almost  no  poor, 
plain  people,  but  the  great  body  are  people  of  \vealth, 
culture,  and  refinement ;  and  the  pulpit  is  invariably 
high-toned,  perfectly  pure  in  language,  clear  and  me- 
thodical in  discourse,  always  proper,  —  so  proper,  in 
fact,  that  it  is  almost  dead  for  want  of  life,  for  want 
of  side  branches,  for  want  of  adaptation  and  conformity 
to  human  nature  as  it  is.  It  is  under  such  circumstan- 
ces, where  a  man  follows  a  single  groove  in  himself  or 
in  his  congregation,  and  does  it  because  he  learns  to 
work  easier  so,  year  by  year,  —  and  it  is  really  on  that 


60 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


account,  —  that  preaching  becomes  narrowed  down  and 
very  soon  wears  out. 

It  has  been  asked  here,  why  pastors  change  so  often. 
\ Preachers  are  too  apt  to  set  the  truth  before  their  con- 
gregations in  one  way  only,  —  whichever  one  they  find 
they  have  the  greatest  facility  for ;  and  that  is  like 
playing  on  one  chord,  —  men  get  tired  of  the  monot- 
ony. Whereas,  preaching  should  be  directed  to  every 
element  of  human  nature  that  God  has  implanted  in  us, 
—  to  the  imaginative,  to  the  highly  spiritual,  to  the 
moral,  to  that  phase  of  the  intellectual  that  works  up 
and  toward  the  invisible,  and  to  the  intellectual  that 
works  down  to  the  material  and  tangible. 

He  is  a  great  man  who  can  play  upon  the  human 
soul !  We  think  him  a  great  artist,  who  can  play  on  an 
organ  with  sixty  stops,  combining  them  infinitely,  and 
drawing  out  harmony  and  melody,  marching  them 
through  with  grand  thought,  to  the  end  of  the  sym- 
phony ;  that  indicates  a  master,  we  think.  It  does ; 
but  what  organ  that  man  ever  built  does  not  shrink  in 
comparison  with  the  one  that  God  built  and  called 
Man  ?  Where  you  have  before  you  a  whole  congrega- 
tion or  a  whole  community,  and  all  their  wants  and 
needs  are  known,  and  you  are  trying  to  draw  out  of 
them  a  higher  and  nobler  life,  what  an  instrument  you 
have  to  play  upon,  and  what  a  power  it  is  when  you 
have  learned  it,  and  have  the  touch  by  which  you  can 
play  so  as  to  control  its  entire  range  and  compass  ! 
There  is  nothing  more  sublime  in  this  world  than  a 
man  set  upon  lifting  his  fellow-men  up  toward  Heaven, 
and  able  to  do  it.  There  are  no  sensations  in  this  world 
comparable  with  those  which  one  has  whose  whole  soul 


THE  PERSONAL  ELEMENT  IN  ORATORY.  61 

is  aglow,  waking  into  the  consciousness  of  this  power. 
It  is  the  Divine  power,  and  it  is  all  working  up  toward 
the  invisible  and  the  spiritual.  There  is  no  ecstasy 
like  it. 

DEMANDS  OF  VARIETY  UPON  THE  PREACHER. 

There  is  another  question  which  I  have  barely  hinted 
at,  and  that  is,  in  attempting  to  address  the  truth  in 
different  forms  to  men,  so  as  to  meet  the  wants  of  a 
whole  community,  must  not  a  man  be  universal  like 
Shakespeare  ?  How  can  you  expect  men,  taking  them 
as  they  are,  to  do  this  ? 

My  reasoning  is  this :  It  is  not  to  be  supposed  that 
men  will  do  it  in  perfection,  that  they  will  do  it  at  once, 
or  that  they  will  ever  more  than  approximate  to  the 
ideal.  I  shall  have  occasion  to  repeat  every  time  I  speak 
to  you  this  thing,  —  you  have  got  to  learn  your  business. 
It  will  take  years  and  years  before  you  are  expert 
preachers.  Let  nobody  puff  you  up  by  saying  you  are 
able  preachers,  because  you  can  preach  three  or  four 
good  sermons.  You  have  three  or  four  tunes  ;  that  is  all. 
You  are  not  practised  workmen  until  you  understand 
human  nature,  and  know  how  to  touch  it  with  the  Di- 
vine truth ;  until  you  comprehend  the  Divine  truth  in 
so  many  of  its  bearings  upon  the  human  soul  that  you 
can  work  with  tolerable  facility  from  the  truth  that  is 
in  J esus  to  that  which  is  in  man ;  and,  quite  as  often, 
can  reverse  the  process.  That  is  the  study.  You  have 
not  begun  your  education  yet.  You  are  but  getting 
ready  to  study  when  you  begin  to  preach.  If  you 
preach  for  five  years,  and  find  that  your  work  is  slow, 
and  much  of  it  obscure,  and  does  not  produce  the  re- 


62 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


suits  aimed  at,  do  not  be  discouraged.  The  work  is  so 
great  that  you  need  not  be  ashamed,  after  working  for 
years,  to  find  that  you  are  still  an  apprentice  and  not 
a  journeyman. 

HOW  TO  USE  one's  OWN  SPECIAL  FORCES. 

The  question,  then,  comes  up,  How  far  shall  a  man 
conform  to  the  strong  tendencies  of  his  own  nature  ? 

One  man  is  himself  very  imaginative,  and  not  a 
reasoner ;  or,  he  finds  himself  possessed  of  a  judicial 
mind,  calm,  clear,  but  not  enthusiastic  ;  while  another 
finds  himself  an  artist,  as  it  were,  with  a  mind  expan- 
sive and  sensitive,  seeing  everything  iridescent,  in  all 
colors.  Can  these  men  change  their  own  endowments  ? 
Or,  how  can  one  conform  to  the  endowment  of  the 
other  ? 

A  minister  says,  "  I  am  naturally  very  sensitive  to 
the  praise  and  opinion  of  men.  When  I  speak  I  can't 
get  rid  of  the  feeling  of  myself  I  am  standing  before 
a  thousand  people,  and  I  am  all  the  time  thinking 
about  myself,  —  whether  I  am  standing  right,  and  what 
men  are  thinking  of  me.  I  can't  keep  that  out  of  my 
mind."  What  is  such  a  man  to  do  ?  Can  he  change 
his  own  temperament  ? 

On  the  other  side,  there  are  men  who  say,  "  I  don't 
care  what  people  think  of  me  ;  I  wish  I  cared  more. 
I  am  naturally  cold,  somewhat  proud,  and  self-sus- 
tained. People  talk  about  sympathy  and  a  warm 
side  toward  men,  but  I  never  feel  any  of  that.  I  do 
what  is  right,  if  the  heavens  fall,  and  go  on  my  way. 
If  people  like  it,  I  am  glad ;  and  if  they  don't,  that 
is  their  lookout."    How  can  you  change  that  disposi- 


THE  PERSONAL  ELEMENT  IN  ORATORY.  63 

tion  ?  How  can  a  man  alter  the  laws  that  are  laid  down 
for  him  ? 

Well,  in  one  sense,  he  cannot  change  at  all.  You  can 
make  just  as  many  prayers,  write  just  as  many  resolu- 
tions, and  keep  just  as  long  a  journal  as  you  please,  re- 
cording the  triumphs  of  grace  over  your  approbativeness, 
and  when  you  are  screwed  down  in  your  coffin,  you  w^ill 
have  been  no  less  of  a  praise-loving  man  than  when 
you  were  taken  out  of  the  cradle.  That  quality  grows, 
and  it  grows  stronger  in  old  age  than  at  any  other  time. 
You  will  find  that  men  get  over  some  things  in  time  ; 
they  become  less  and  less  imaginative ;  they  become 
less  severe  as  they  grow  older ;  but,  if  vanity  is  a  part 
of  their  composition,  old  age  only  strengthens  it,  and 
they  grow  worse  and  worse  as  they  grow  in  years.  In 
general,  too,  if  a  man  has  a  strong  will,  I  do  not  think 
he  loses  any  of  it  as  he  gets  along  through  life.  It  be- 
comes fixed,  firm  as  adamant. 

But  it  is  not  necessary  that  you  should  change  much. 
Go  and  look  at  Central  Park.  Before  the  artistic  hand 
of  the  landscape-gardener  began  to  work  upon  its  sur- 
face, there  were  vast  ledges  of  rock  in  every  direction, 
and  other  obstructions  of  the  most  stubborn  character. 
Now,  if,  when  the  engineer  came  to  look  over  the  land 
for  the  purpose  of  laying  it  out  into  a  beautiful  park, 
he  had  said,  "How  under  the  sun  am  I  going  to  blast 
out  those  rocks  ? "  lie  would  have  had  a  terrible  time 
of  it,  and  would  have  been  blasting  until  this  day.  In- 
stead of  that,  however,  he  said,  "  I  will  plant  vines 
around  the  edges  of  the  rocks  and  let  them  run  up  over. 
The  rocks  will  look  all  the  better,  and  the  vines  will 
have  a  place  to  grow  and  display  their  beauty.  In  that 
way  I  will  make  use  of  the  rocks." 


64 


LiECTURES  ON  PREACHtjJ(^. 


So  it  is  with  your  own  nature.  There  is  not  a  single 
difficulty  in  it  w^hich  you  cannot  make  use  of,  and  which, 
after  that,  would  not  be  a  power  for  good.  Suppose  you 
are  conscious,  in  your  disposition,  of  approbativeness. 
Do  you  think  you  are  more  sensitive  than  thousands  of 
God's  best  ministers  have  been  ?  But  perhaps  you  love 
the  praise  of  men  more  than  the  praise  of  God.  The 
thing  for  you  to  do,  then,  is  to  train  your  approbative- 
ness, so  that,  instead  of  delighting  in  the  lower  types 
of  praise,  —  those  which  imply  weakness  and  which 
unman  you,  —  you  will  strive  after  those  which  rise 
steadily  higher  and  higher  in  the  things  which  are  of 
God.  Now,  it  is  not  your  fault  that  you  have  the  ele- 
ment of  approbativeness,  but  it  is  your  fault  that  you 
suffer  it  to  feed  on  despicable  food.  Train  it  to  desire 
approbation  for  things  that  are  noble  and  just,  for  doing, 
intensely,  whatever  is  disinterested  among  men,  and  for 
things  that  other  men  cannot  do.  Task  yourselves  as 
men  should  do,  and  not  like  boys  or  puling  girls.  Have 
such  a  conception  of  manhood  in  Christ  J esus  that  you 
would  scorn  praise  for  things  that  are  less  than  noble. 
Strike  a  line  through  the  head,  and  seek  praise  for 
things  that  are  represented  above  the  line  and.  not 
below  it. 

You  cannot  find  a  more  beautiful  or  illustrious  in- 
stance of  the  transformation  of  a  great  constitutional 
faculty  than  in  Paul,  —  Paul,  the  fiercely  proud  and 
arrogant,  the  man  that  was  originally  made  for  a  per- 
secutor. For,  the  moment  the  summer  of  Christ's  love 
drew  near  and  shone  on  him,  he  became  a  changed 
man.  Although  he  moans  and  yearns  in  his  teachings, 
and  his  letters  are  full  of  self-consciousness,  yet  it  is  all 


THE  PERSONAL  ELEMENT  IN  ORATORY. 


65 


extremely  noble.  It  is  beautiful.  I  would  not  take  a 
single  I "  out  of  Paul's  epistles ;  and  yet  you  might 
take  scores  out  of  every  one  of  them,  and  they  would 
scarcely  be  missed,  there  are  so  many.  Where  was 
there  a  man  whose  pride  was  more  regal  than  his  ?  and 
what  a  power  it  was,  and  how  he  used  it  for  Christ's 
sake  ! 

In  regard  to  strong  constitutional  peculiarities,  I 
would  say,  therefore,  that  you  cannot  eradicate  them, 
and  that  you  should  not  try  to  change  them  very  much. 
^--lYou  can  regulate  and  discipline  every  one  of  your  emo- 
tive powers ;  but  do  not  try  to  quench  them.  Do  not 
crucify  anything.  Do  not  crucify  your  passions.  Do 
not  crucify  any  basilar  instinct.  There  is  force  in  it,  if 
you  know  how  to  use  it  as  a  force,  in  the  propulsion  of 
moral  feeling  and  moral  ideas.  You  may  be  naturally 
ambitious ;  you  will  be  ambitious  to  the  day  of  your 
death.  Do  not  attempt  to  take  away  your  constitu- 
tional endowment,  only  train  it  to  things  which  are 
consonant  with  Divine  sympathy  and  with  true  life. 
Make  it  work,  not  for  yourself,  but  for  others,  and  it 
will  be  a  power  that  you  need  not  be  ashamed  of. 

SELF-TRAINING  AN  EDUCATION. 

This  whole  necessity  of  self-use  is  provided  as  a  school 
of  education  for  every  man,  and  especially  may  it  be 
made  eflticient  in  the  dissemination  of  the  Gospel.  He 
who  gives  his  whole  life-force  to  the  work  of  converting 
men  unto  Christ,  will  find,  I  think,  that  for  a  long  time 
he  scarcely  will  need  anybody  to  tell  him  what  to  do 
and  what  to  be.  You  must  go  into  a  parish  and  say  to 
yourself,  "  There  is  not  a  man,  woman,  or  child  within 


66 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


the  bounds  of  this  parish  to  whom  I  am  not  beholden. 
I  am  to  bring  the  force  of  my  whole  soul  to  bear  upon 
these  persons.  I  am  to  get  thoroughly  acquainted  with 
them.  I  am  to  make  them  feel  my  personality.  I  am 
to  prepare  them  to  hear  me  preach  by  gaining  their 
confidence  outside  of  the  church  and  pulpit."  You  must 
meet  them  in  their  every-day  life,  in  their  ruggedness 
and  selfishness.  You  will  find  one  man  spoken  of  as 
a  laughing-stock  in  one  neighborhood,  and  another  as 
an  odious  man  in  another.  Nobody  can  be  a  laughing- 
stock or  odious  to  you.  You  are  like  physicians  who 
attend  the  inmates  of  a  hospital;  it  matters  not  to 
them  from  what  cause  the  patients  are  lying  hurt  and 
wounded  there.  Sick  men  belong  to  the  physician's 
care,  and  he  must  take  care  of  them.  Do  not  pick  out 
the  beautiful  and  good,  or  those  who  suit  you.  Select 
from  your  parish  the  men  who  need  you  most,  and  if 
you  cannot  be  patient  with  them,  if  you  cannot  bring 
your  soul  to  be  a  sacrifice  for  others  and  bear  with  them, 
how  can  you  make  them  understand  what  J esus  Christ 
did  for  the  world  ?  You  have  got  to  do  that  same 
thing  right  over  again  at  home,  with  the  members  of 
your  church,  with  the  outcast  and  with  the  wanderer. 
You  must  be,  if  I  may  say  so,  little  Christs.  You  must 
make  a  living  sacrifice  of  yourself  again  and  again, 
against  your  instincts,  —  humbling  your  pride,  holding 
in  desires,  submitting  to  things  you  do  not  like,  and 
doing  things  which  are  repugnant  to  your  taste,  for 
Christ's  sake  and  for  man's  sake  ;  learning  to  love  to  do 
it;  and  so  interpreting,  by  your  personality,  what  it 
means  for  Jesus  Christ  to  have  made  a  sacrifice  of  him- 
self for  the  salvation  of  the  world.    What  else  did  the 


THE  PERSONAL  ELEMENT  IN  ORATORY. 


67 


Apostle  mean  by  saying,  "Christ  in  you"?  And  if  he 
promises  to  abide  in  you,  how  can  he  abide  in  you  in 
any  other  sense  than  that  ? 

PREACHING  THE  PREACHER'S  WHOLE  BUSINESS. 

The  next  point  I  wish  to  make  with  you  is,  that  if 
you  are  to  be  preachers  in  any  such  sense  as  this  which 
I  have  explained  to  you,  preaching  will  have  to  be 
your  whole  business.  Now,  in  a  small  way,  everybody 
preaches  ;  but  if  you  are  going  to  be  professional  preach- 
ers, if  you  will  make  that  your  life-calling,  it  is  not 
probable  that  there  is  one  of  you  who  was  built  large 
enough  to  do  anything  more  than  that.  It  will  take  all 
that  you  have  in  you  and  all  your  time.  I  do  not  think 
a  man  could  run  a  locomotive-engine,  paint  pictures, 
keep  school,  and  preach  on  Sundays  to  any  very  great 
edification.  A  man  who  is  going  to  be  a  successful 
preacher  should  make  his  whole  life  run  toward  the 
pulpit. 

Perhaps  you  will  say,  "  Are  you  not,  yourself,  doing 
just  the  other  thing  ?  Don't  you  edit  a  paper,  and 
lecture,  and  make  political  speeches,  and  write  this, 
that,  and  the  other  thing  ?  Are  you  not  studying 
science,  and  are  you  not  an  fait  in  the  natural  enjoy- 
ments of  rural  life  ?  " 

Well,  where  a  man  stands  in  the  pulpit,  and  all 
the  streams  run  away  from  the  pulpit  down  to  those 
things,  the  pulpit  will  be  very  shallow  and  very  dry ; 
but  when  a  man  opens  these  streams  in  the  neigh- 
boring hills  as  so  many  springs,  and  all  the  streams  run 
down  into  the  pulpit,  he  will  have  abundant  supplies. 
There  is  a  great  deal  of  difference,  whether  you  are 


68 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


Working  in  the  collaterals  toward  the  pulpit,  or  away 
from  the  pulpit. 

You  can  tell  very  quickly.  If,  when  a  man  comes 
back  from  his  garden,  his  lectures,  his  journeys,  and 
his  aesthetic  studies,  or  from  his  scientific  coteries  and 
seanceSy  he  finds  himself  less  interested  in  his  proper 
work,  if  the  Sabbath  is  getting  to  be  rather  a  bur- 
densome day  to  him,  and  it  is  irksome  to  be  preach- 
ing, he  must  quit  one  or  other  of  those  things.  The 
streams  run  from  the  pulpit  instead  of  into  it.  But 
if,  when  a  man  feels  he  is  called  to  be  an  architect  of 
men,  an  artist  among  men,  in  moulding  them;  when 
one  feels  that  his  life-power  is  consecrated  to  trans- 
forming the  human  soul  toward  the  higher  ideal  of 
character  for  time  and  eternity,  he  looks  around  upon 
the  great  forces  of  the  world  and  says  to  them,  "  You 
are  my  servants  "  ;  to  the  clouds,  "  Give  me  what  you 
have  of  power " ;  to  the  hills,  "  Bring  me  of  your 
treasures "  ;  to  all  that  is  beautiful,  "  Come  and  put 
your  garment  upon  me  " ;  and  to  all  that  is  enjoyable, 
"Fill  me  with  force  and  give  abundance  to  the  ful- 
ness of  my  feeling," — if  a  man  makes  himself  mas- 
ter of  the  secrets  of  nature  that  he  may  have  power 
and  strength  to  do  his  work,  —  then  he  is  not  carrying 
on  three  or  four  kinds  of  business  at  the  same  time. 
He  is  carrying  on  one  business,  and  he  collects  from  a 
hundred  the  materials  and  forces  by  which  he  does  it. 

That  is  right.  It  will  do  you  no  hurt,  but  will  bene- 
fit you,  if  you  will  make  yourself  familiar  with  public 
affairs.  But  you  must  not  let  public  affairs  settle  down 
on  you  and  smother  you.  You  must  keep  yourself 
abreast  of  science ;  but  you  must  be  surer  of  your  faith 


THE  PEKSONAL  ELEMENT  IN  ORATORY.  69 

than  science  is  of  its  details.  You  must  see  to  it  that 
you  are  the  master  of  everything,  and  not  it  the  master 
of  you.  If  music  is  more  to  you  than  your  duties,  it  is 
dangerous  ;  but  it  ought  to  be  a  shame  to  you  that  it  is 
dangerous.  Jf  genial  society  and  the  flow  of  social 
merriment  is  sweet  to  you,  and  it  seduces  you  from 
your  work,  it  is  perilous,  —  but  it  is  a  shame  that  these 
things  should  so  easily  overcome  you.  You  ought  to 
build  yourselves  on  a  pattern  so  broad  that  you  can 
take  all  these  things  along  with  you.  They  are  the 
King's  ;  and  you  have  a  right  to  them.  You  have  a 
right  to  be  a  child  with  children  ;  the  best  fellow  among 
young  men.  You  have  a  right  to  all  manly  recreations, 
but  you  must  see  to  it  that  you  are  stronger  than  the 
whole  of  them.  You  have  a  right  to  feel  like  other 
men,  and  to  take  part  in  all  their  interests,  but  you 
must  be  larger  than  them  all.  You  must  feel  that 
you  are  charged  with  the  realities  of  the  great  world 
that  is  hanging  over  our  heads,  —  and,  my  God,  such  a 
world  !  that  never  says  anything  ;  that  keeps  silence 
above  us,  while  the  destinies  of  the  ages  have  been 
rolling  onward  ;  and  where  there  are  such  things  going 
on,  that  I  marvel  no  sound  ever  drops  down  to  us.  But 
if  a  man  lives  and  has  seen  Him  that  is  invisible,  and 
It  that  is  invisible,  all  these  lower  things  are  open 
books  unto  him;  ajid,  instead  of  weakening,  they  be- 
come elements  of  strength  and  power. 

EXTERNAL  HINDRANCES. 

A  man  may  spend  one  half  the  strength  of  his  life 
trying  to  overcome  obstacles  that  interpose  betw^een 
himself  and  men,  which  is  absolutely  unnecessary.  I 


70 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


told  Brother  Storrs  in  his  church  edifice  that,  with  all 
his  splendid  success,  I  thought  one  full  third  of  his 
life  was  spent  in  overcoming  the  natural  resistance  of 
that  church  structure  to  the  gospel ;  not  because  it 
was  beautiful,  for  I  think  a  beautiful  church-  is  a  help, 
but  because  it  was  constructed  on  the  principle  of 
isolation  or  wide  separation,  —  as  though  a  man  should 
sit  one  side  of  a  river  and  try  to  win  a  mistress  on  the 
other  side,  bawling  out  his  love  at  the  top  of  his  voice. 
However  she  might  have  been  inclined,  one  such  shout 
would  be  too  much  for  tender  sentiment. 

Churches  are  built  now  on  the  same  principle  as  they 
formerly  were,  in  the  days  of  the  founders  of  the  old 
cathedrals.  Then  the  services  turned  on  the  effect  of 
music,  and  the  production  of  awe  by  the  shimmering 
lights,  by  the  dimness  and  vagueness.  They  turned 
on  the  presentation  of  gorgeous  apparel  and  all  kinds 
of  things  for  the  eye  to  behold ;  but  there  was  very 
little  preaching,  very  little.  Because  they  built  their 
churches  on  a  cruciform  plan,  we  —  who  have  revo- 
lutionized old  theories,  who  believe  that  a  church  is  a 
household,  and  that  a  preacher  has  a  personal  influ- 
ence upon  men,  and  is  not  a  mere  machine  —  build  our 
churches  just  like  them.  You  will  see,  in  every  culti- 
vated community,  churches  built  for  modern  preaching 
purposes  on  mediaeval  principles. 

We  will  take  the  church  in  New  York  called  the 
Broadway  Tabernacle.  In  it  there  are  two  lines  of 
columns  which  hide  a  range  of  six  pews,  on  each  side 
straight  from  the  pulpit  clear  through  to  the  corner  of 
the  church,  where  the  men  and  women  cannot  see  the 
preacher  on  account  of  these  architectural  adjuncts 


THE  PERSONAL  ELEMENT  IN  ORATORY. 


71 


which  run  up  to  the  ceiling  and  make  the  church  so 
beautiful.  There  the  people  can  sit  and  look  at  the 
columns  during  the  whole  of  the  sermon-time. 

In  Dr.  Storrs's  church  in  Brooklyn*  there  was  for- 
merly a  space  of  from  fifteen  to  twenty  feet  between 
the  pulpit  and  the  pews.  It  has  been' changed.  But 
formerly  you  could  see  the  minister  only  down  to  his 
chest.  He  stood  in  that  box,  stuck  up  against  the  wall, 
and  then  came  a  great  space,  like  the  desert  of  Sahara; 
and  over  on  the  other  side  of  it  began  to  be  his  audience. 
Before  he  can  fill  such  a  space  the  magnetic  influence 
of  the  man  is  all  lost.  He  has  squandered  one  of  the 
best  natural  forces  of  the  pulpit. 

That  is  not  the  worst  of  it.  When  a  man  is  made 
by  God  he  is  made  all  over,  and  every  part  is  necessary 
to  each  and  to  the  whole.  A  man's  whole  form  is  a 
part  of  his  public  speaking.  His  feet  speak  and  so  do 
his  hands.  You  put  a  man  in  one  of  these  barrelled 
pulpits,  where  there  is  no  responsibility  laid  upon  him 
as  to  his  body,  and  he  falls  into  all  manner  of  gawky 
attitudes,  and  rests  himself  like  a  country  horse  at  a 
hitching-post.  He  sags  down,  and  has  no  consciousness 
of  his  awkwardness.  But  bring  him  out  on  a  platform, 
and  see  how  much  more  manly  he  becomes,  how  much 
more  force  comes  out !  The  moment  a  man  is  brought 
face  to  face  with  other  men,  then  does  the  influence  of 
each  act  and  react  upon  the  other.  I  have  seen  work- 
men talking  on  the  street,  stooping,  laughing,  and  slap- 
ping their  hands  on  their  knees.  Why,  their  very  ges- 
tures were  a  good  oration,  although  I  did  not  hear  a 
word  that  was  said.    A  man  who  speaks  right  before 

*    The  Church  of  the  Pilgrims." 


72 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


his  audience,  and  without  notes,  will  speak,  little  by- 
little,  with  the  gestures  of  the  whole  body,  and  not 
with  the  gestures  of  one  finger  only. 


No  man  will  speak  long  with  any  interest  when  he 
thinks  about  himself.  You  may  have  the  very  best  of 
sermons,  but  if  your  boot  pinches  or  you  have  a  painful 
corn,  you  will  think  about  the  boot  and  about  the  corn, 
and  not  about  the  sermon.  A  man  needs  to  be  brought 
out  of  himself  as  much  as  possible.  You  must  relieve 
him  from  all  manner  of  external  embarrassment.  Put 
a  man  where  he  is  liable,  as  I  have  been,  standing  on 
the  head  of  a  barrel  at  a  political  meeting,  to  go  through, 
and  what  will  he  think  of  ?  Now,  on  a  little  narrow 
platform  one  can  walk  backward  and  forward  to  be 
sure,  but  if  he  go  toward  the  edges  ever  so  little,  he  is 
in  fear  of  stumbling  off.  Yet  even  that  is  better  than 
a  box-pulpit.  What  has  that  to  do  with  preaching  ? 
What  do  you  want  with  it  ?    What  is  it  for  ? 

This  evil  is  not  confined  to  pulpits  merely,  but  to  all 
places  where  a  speaker  has  to  address  a  large  body 
of  men.  I  think  the  matter  so  important,  that  I  tell  the 
truth,  and  lie  not,  when  I  say  that  I  would  not  accept  a 
settlement  in  a  very  advantageous  place,  if  I  was  obliged 
to  preach  out  of  one  of  those  old-fashioned  swallow's- 
nests  on  the  wall. 


^  The  next  point  you  should  look  to  is  to  have  your 
pews  as  near  as  possible  to  the  speaker.  A  preacher 
must  be  a  man  among  men.    There  is  a  force  —  call  it 


SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS. 


NEARNESS  TO  THE  AUDIENCE. 


THE  PERSONAL  ELEMENT  IN  ORATORY.  73 

magnetism,  or  electricity,  or  what  you  will  —  in  a 
man,  which  is  a  personal  element,  and  which  flows  from 
a  speaker  who  is  en  rapport  with  his  audience.  This 
principle  should  be  utilized  in  the  work  of  preaching. 
I  do  not  say  that  Jonathan  Edwards  could  not  have 
preached  under  the  pulpit  disadvantage.  He  could 
have  preached  out  of  anything.  But  there  are  not 
many  men  like  Jonathan  Edwards.  The  average  man 
needs  all  the  extraneous  advantages  he  can  press  into 
his  service. 

People  often  say,  "  Do  you  not  think  it  is  much  more 
inspiring  to  speak  to  a  large  audience  than  a  small 
one  ?  "  No,  I  say ;  I  can  speak  just  as  well  to  twelve 
persons  as  to  a  thousand,  provided  those  twelve  are 
crowded  around  me  and  close  together,  so  that  they 
touch  each  other.  But  even  a  thousand  people,  with 
four  feet  space  between  every  two  of  them,  would  be 
just  the  same  as  an  empty  room.  Every  lecturer  will 
understand  what  I  mean,  who  has  ever  seen  such  audi- 
ences and  addressed  them.  But  crowd  your  audience 
together,  and  you  will  set  them  off  with  not  half  the 
effort. 

Brother  Day,  the  son  of  old  President  Day,  of  Yale 
College,  was  one  of  my  right-hand  men  in  founding 
the  Plymouth  Church  in  Brooklyn ;  and  being  a  civil 
engineer,  and  the  church  having  voted  to  build,  he  went 
into  my  study  with  me  to  plan  the  edifice.  He  asked 
me  what  I  wanted,  in  the  first  place,  and  how  many 
people  I  wanted  the  church  to  seat.  I  told  him. 
"  Very  good,''  he  said ;  "  and  how  do  you  want  them 
located  ? "  "I  want  them  to  surround  me,  so  that 
they  will  come  up  on  every  side,  and  behind  me,  so 
4 


74 


LECTURES  ON  PKEACHING. 


that  I  shall  be  in  the  centre  of  the  crowd,  and  have 
the  people  surge  all  about  me."  The  result  is,  that 
there  is  not  a  better  constructed  hall  in  the  world  for 
the  purposes  of  speaking  and  hearing  than  Plymouth 
Church.  Charles  Dickens,  after  giving  one  of  his  read- 
ings in  it,  sent  me  special  word  not  to  build  any  other 
hall  for  speaking ;  that  Plymouth  Church  was  perfect. 
It  is  perfect,  because  it  was  built  on  a  principle,  — 
the  principle  of  social  and  personal  magnetism,  which 
emanates  reciprocally  from  a  speaker  and  from  a  close 
throng  of  hearers.  This  is  perhaps  the  most  important 
element  of  all  the  external  conditions  conducive  to 
good  and .  effective  preaching. 

QUESTIONS  AND  ANSWERS. 

Rev.  Dr.  Bacon.  —  Would  you  recommend  the  hanging  of  one 
or  two  architects  by  court-martial  ? 

Mr.  Beecher.  —  I  do  not  know  that  a  court-martial 
would  be  the  proper  tribunal  by  which  to  try  them, 
but  I  would  at  least  make  them  recite  the  Westminster 
Catechism  every  morning  as  a  punishment.  Architects, 
however,  do  a  great  deal  of  good  work.  They  certainly 
help,  by  the  exterior  of  churches,  to  beautify  our  towns 
and  villages.  But  there  is  a  certain  thing  that  I  never 
found  an  architect  to  be  wise  about,  —  ventilation.  I 
never  knew  anybody  else  who  was.  There  is  no  diffi- 
culty in  ventilating  a  house  when  there  is  nobody  in  it. 
The  difficulty  is  to  have  a  house  full  of  people,  and 
then  to  ventilate  it.  How  can  you  get  fresh  air  into 
a  room,  after  letting  out  the  bad  air  ?  Draughts  will 
be  caused,  and  people  will  take  cold.  That  question 
architects  have  never  been  able  to  solve. 


THE  PERSONAL  ELEMENT  IN  ORATORY.  75 

In  reference  to  prayer-meetings,  this  lecture  has  a 
bearing  which  I  may  as  well  mention  here.  One  of  the 
great  difficulties  with  them  ordinarily  is  that  people  are 
so  separated  as  to  lose  the  whole  social  element.  You 
will  notice  that,  after  a  prayer- meeting,  which  has  been 
very  dull  and  very  stiff"  and  very  proper,  has  been 
closed,  and  the  brethren  gather  around  the  stove,  they 
commence  talking  socially  among  themselves,  and  then 
it  is  that  the  real  conference-meeting  begins.  One  dea- 
con says,  Brother  So-and-so,  when  you  were  speaking 
on  such  a  topic  you  said  so  and  so."  He  goes  on  and 
makes  quite  an  effective  little  talk,  but  you  could  not 
have  dragged  it  out  of  him  with  an  ox-team  during  the 
meeting;  and  so  one  and  another  will  speak  up  and 
join  in,  and  they  will  get  warmly  interested  in  their 
discussion.  Around  the  stove  was  the  real  meeting. 
The  other  was  the  mere  simidacrum  of  a  meeting. 


IV. 


THE  STUDY  OF  HUMAN  NATUEE. 

February  8,  1872. 


Y  impression  is  that  preachers  are  quite 
as  well  acquainted  with  human  nature  as 
the  average  of  well-informed  citizens,  but 
far  less  than  lawyers,  or  merchants,  or 


teachers,  or,  especially,  politicians.  The  preachers  of 
America  have  been,  I  think,  as  intelligent  and  suc- 
cessful as  any  that  ever  lived.  As  a  body  of  men  they 
have  been  upright,  discreet,  and  wise  in  the  general 
management  of  the  affairs  of  Christian  churches.  As 
a  body,  they  have  in  their  personal  and  administrative 
or  pastoral  relations  been,  on  the  whole,  sagacious  in 
matters  pertaining  to  human  nature.  Nevertheless, 
Preachers,  both  English  and  American,  have  not 
preached  to  man's  nature,  as  it  is. 

It  is  true  that  in  the  applications  of  sermons,  par- 
ticularly such  as  are  known  in  America  as  Eevival 
Sermons,  much  knowledge  of  human  nature  is  shown, 
and  efficient  use  is  made  of  it.  But,  in  a  larger  gen- 
eralization, it  may  be  said  that  there  have  been  but  two 
schools  of  Preachers.  One  may  be  called  the  Ecclesi- 
astical school ;  in  which  term  I  include  the  whole 


THE  STUDY  OF  HUMAN  NATURE. 


77 


body  of  men  who  regard  the  Church  on  earth  as 
something  to  be  administered,  and  themselves  as  chan- 
nels, in  some  sense,  of  Divine  grace,  to  direct  the  flow 
of  that  Divine  institution.  Ecclesiastical  preachers  are 
those  who  administer  largely  and  preach  incidentally, 
if  one  might  say  so.  There  is  also  the  Dogmatic  school 
of  Preachers,  or  those  who  have  relied  upon  a  pre-exist- 
ing system  of  truth,  which  has  been  founded  before  their 
day  and  handed  down  from  generation  to  generation,  and 
who  apparently  proceed  upon  the  supposition  that  their 
whole  duty  is  discharged  when  they  have  made  a  regu- 
lar and  rejjetitious  statement  of  all  the  great  points  of 
doctrine  from  time  to  time. 

NECESSITIES  OF  THE  FUTURE. 

N"ow,  the  school  of  the  future  (if  I  am  a  prophet,  and 
I  am,  of  course,  satisfied  in  my  own  mind  that  I  am  !)  is 
what  may  be  called  a  Life  School.  This  style  of  preach- 
ing is  to  proceed,  not  so  much  upon  the  theory  of  the 
sanctity  of  the  Church  and  its  ordinances,  or  upon  a 
pre-existing  system  of  truth  which  is  in  the  Church 
somewhere  or  somehow,  as  upon  the  necessity  for  all 
teachers,  first,  to  study  the  strengths  and  the  weaknesses 
of  human  nature  minutely  ;  and  then  to  make  use  of 
such  portions  of  the  truth  as  are  required  by  the  special 
needs  of  man,  and  for  the  development  of  the  spiritual 
side  of  human  nature  over  the  animal  or  lower  side  — 
the  preparation  of  man  in  his  higher  nature  for  a  nobler 
existence  hereafter.  It  is  a  life-school  in  this  respect, 
that  it  deals  not  with  the  facts  of  the  past,  except  in  so 
far  as  they  can  be  made  food  for  the  present  and  factors 
of  the  life  that  now  is ;  but  rather  studies  to  understand 


78 


LECTURES  ON  PKEACHING. 


meUy  and  to  deal  with  them,  face  to  face  and  heart  to 
heart,  —  yea,  even  to  mold  them  as  an  artist  molds  his 
clay  or  carves  his  statue.  And  in  regard  to  such  a 
school  as  that,  while  there  has  been  much  done  inci- 
dentally, the  revised  procedure  of  education  yet  awaits 
development  and  accomplishment ;  and  I  think  that 
our  profession  is  in  danger,  and  in  great  danger,  of 
going  under,  and  of  working  effectively  only  among  the 
relatively  less  informed  and  intelligent  of  the  commun- 
ity; of  being  borne  with,  in  a  kind  of  contemptuous 
charity,  or  altogether  neglected,  by  the  men  of  culture 
who  have  been  strongly  developed  on  their  moral  side, 
—  not  their  moral  side  as  connected  with  revealed  re- 
ligion, but  as  connected  rather  with  human  knowledge 
and  worldly  wisdom.  The  question,  then,  comes  up, 
Do  men  need  this  intimately  practical  instruction  ? 
and  if  so,  must  there  be  to  meet  it  this  life-school  of 
preachers  ? 

RELATION    OF    BIBLE    TRUTH   TO    CHRISTIANITY   IN  THE 
WORLD. 

But  I  am  asked,  "  Have  we  not,  in  the  truth  as  it  has 
been  revealed  in  Jesus  Christ,  everything  that  is  needed  ? 
If  a  man  take  the  Gospels,  and  the  life  and  sayings  of 
the  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  and  preach  these,  is  he  not  thor- 
oughly furnished  to  every  good  work,  and  does  he  need 
to  go  outside  of  the  Bible  ?  "  Yes,  he  does,  for  no  man 
can  take  the  inside  of  the  Bible,  if  he  does  not  know 
how  to  take  the  outside. 

The  kingdom  of  God  and  of  truth,  as  it  is  laid  down 
in  the  New  Testament,  is  a  kingdom  of  seeds.  They 
have  been  sown  abroad,  and  have  been  growing  and  de- 


THE  STUDY  OF  HUMAN  NATURE. 


79 


veloping  in  the  world ;  and,  whereas,  when  they  were 
initiated  they  were  but  seminal  forms,  now  they  have 
spread  like  the  banyan-tree.  And  shall  I  go  back  and 
talk  about  acorns  after  I  have  learned  about  oaks  ? 
Shall  I  undertake  to  say  that  the  Infinite  Truth  that  is 
in  Jesus  Christ  is,  all  of  it,  comprised  in  the  brief  and 
fragmentary  histories  that  are  contained  in  the  four 
Evangelists;  that  human  life  has  been  nothing;  that 
there  is  no  Providence  or  inspiration  in  the  working  of 
God's  truth  among  mankiud ;  no  purposed  connection 
between  the  history  of  the  world  for  eighteen  hundred 
years,  vitalized  by  the  presence  of  the  Holy  Ghost  and 
those  truths  in  the  New  Testament  ?  All  that  Chris- 
tianity has  produced  is  a  part  of  Christianity.  All  that 
has  been  evolved  in  human  existence  you  may  find  as 
germ-forms  in  the  Bible ;  but  you  must  not  shut  your- 
selves up  to  those  germ-forms,  with  stupid  reverence 
merely  for  the  literal  text  of  the  gospel.  It  is  the  gos- 
pel alive,  the  gospel  as  it  has  been  made  victorious  in 
its  actual  conflict  with  man's  lower  nature,  that  you 
are  to  preach.  What  Christ  is  you  are  to  learn,  indeed, 
with  all  reverence,  from  the  historic  delineation  of  his 
sacred  person  and  life ;  but  also  you  are  to  read  him 
in  the  suffering  human  heart,  in  the  soul  triumphant 
over  suffering,  in  the  self-sacrifice  of  the  mother  for  her 
child,  in  the  heroic  father,  in  every  man  and  woman 
who  has  learned  from  Christ  some  new  development  of 
glorious  self-giving  for  noble  purposes.  These  are  the 
commentaries  expounded  to  you,  through  which  you 
shall  be  able  to  know  Christ  vitally.  All  human  na- 
ture that  has  been  impregnated  with  a  knowledge  of 
ChTist  is  the  Bible  commentary  which  you  have  to 


80 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


read  in  order  to  know  who  Christ  is,  and  to  learn  that 
he  is  not  shut  up  in  the  Gospels  alone. 

EXAMPLE  OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

It  is  said  that  ministers  ought  not  to  know  any- 
thing but  ''Jesus  Christ  and  him  crucified/'  but  that 
is  said  in  a  different  manner  from  that  of  tlie  Apos- 
tle. He  did  not  say,  "  I  preach  nothing  but  the  his- 
torical Christ  and  him  crucified."  He  said  that  he 
put  the  whole  dependence  of  his  ministry  upon  the 
force  that  was  generated  from  Christ  and  him  crucified ; 
and  not  upon  his  own  personal  power,  presence,  or 
eloquence.  He  relied  upon  the  living  presence  of  Al- 
mighty God,  as  revealed  in  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ.  He 
depended  upon  moral  power ;  and  it  is  a  perversion  to 
say  that  men  are  to  preach  nothing  but  the  literal, 
textual  Christ,  or  the  literal,  textual  four  Gospels,  or 
the  literal,  textual  Epistles ;  for  all  of  life  is  open  to 
you.  You  have  a  right  to  preach  from  everything, 
from  the  stars  in  the  zenith  to  the  lowest  form  of 
creation  upon  earth.  All  things  belong  to  you,  for  you 
are  Christ's.  The  earth  is  the  Lord's  and  the  fullness  of 
it.    The  Lord  is  our  Father,  and  therefore  we  are  heirs. 

It  is  also  said,  Are  we  wiser  than  the  Apostles 
were  ? "  I  hope  so.  I  should  be  ashamed  if  we  were 
not.  "  Are  we  better  preachers  than  they  were  ? " 
Yes,  we  ought  to  be  better  preachers  in  our  time  than 
they  would  be.  They  were  adapted  to  their  times,  ad- 
mirably ;  but  I  think  it  is  as  much  a  misapplication 
of  things  to  bring  down  literally  the  arguments  of 
the  Apostles  from  Jerusalem  to  our  times,  as  it  would 
have  been,  were  it  possible,  to  carry  back  all  the  scien- 


THE  STUDY  OF  HUMAN  NATURE. 


tific  knowledge,  and  all  the  developed  political  econ- 
omy which  we  now  have,  and  preach  them  in  old 
Jerusalem,  within  the  Temple.  We  should  be  barba- 
rians to  them,  and  they  woulcj  be  comparative  barba-  . 
rians  to  us.  Adaptation  to  the  times  in  which  ive  live,^ 
is  the  law  of  Providence.  The  Apostles  were  adapted  ' 
to  their  times.  We  must  be  similarly  adapted,  —  not 
in  a  passive,  servile  way,  but  in  a  living,  active  way, 
and  by  taking  an  interest  in  the  things  which  men  do 
now.  What  did  the  Apostles  preach  ?  Did  they  not 
preach  like  Jews  to  Jews,  and  Greeks  to  Greeks  ? 
They  had  liberty,  and  they  took  the  things  they  found 
to  be  needful  in  their  time,  to  the  people  to  whom 
they  ministered.  The  following  of  the  Apostolic  ex- 
ample is  not  to  pursue,  blindly,  their  external  forms, 
but  to  follow  the  light  of  their  humanity  and  that  of 
the  gospel.  This  was  the  example  they  set :  What- 
ever tended  to  elevate  men  from  the  lower  to  the 
higher  sphere,  the  Apostles  thought  lawful  for  them 
to  employ  in  their  ministry. 

You  may  ask  if  they  did  not  understand  human 
nature  without  all  the  study  that  I  am  recommending. 
I  think  that  they  did  understand  a  great  deal  of  hu- 
man nature.  It  does  not  follow,  however,  that  jovl\ 
should  not  attempt  to  understand  as  much  and  more 
than  they  did;  for  such  an  argument  as  that  would 
really  be  not  only  against  a  more  scientific  basis  of 
knowledge  of  human  nature  for  the  modern  preacher, 
but  against  all  development  of  every  kind,  against  all 
growth,  against  all  culture  and  all  refinement.  You 
must  not  pattern  yourselves  on  the  antique  models,  / 
altogether,  except  in  principle. 


82 


LECTUKES  ON  PREACHING. 


WEAKNESS  OF  GOSPEL-PREACHING  IN  THE  PAST. 

It  is  said  by  some,  "  Has  not  Christianity  bee'> 
preached  by  plain  men,  who  did  not  understand  S( 
very  much  about  human  nature,  in  every  age  of  the 
world?"  It  has;  and  what  have  eigliteen  hundred 
years  to  show  for  it  ?  To-day  three  fourths  of  the 
globe  is  heathen,  or  but  semi-civilized.  After  eighteen 
hundred  years  of  preaching  of  the  faith  under  the 
inspiration  of  the  living  Spirit  of  God,  how  Tar  has 
Christiauity  gone  in  the  amelioration  of  the  condition 
of  the  race  ?  I  think  that  one  of  the  most  humiliating 
things  that  can  be  contemplated,  one  of  the  things 
most  savory  to  the  scorner,  and  which  seems  the  most 
likely  to  infuse  a  sceptical  spirit  into  men,  is  to  look  at 
the  pretensions  of  the  men  who  boast  of  the  progress 
of  their  work,  and  then  to  look  at  their  performances. 
I  concede  that  there  has  been  a  great  deal  done, 
and  there  has  been  a  great  deal  of  preparation  for 
more ;  but  the  torpors,  the  vast  retrocessions,  the  long 
lethargic  periods,  and  the  wide  degeneration  of 
Christianity  into  a  kind  of  ritualistic  mummery  and 
conventional  usage,  show  very  plainly  that  the  past 
history  of  preaching  Christianity  is  not  to  be  our  model. 
We  must  find  a  better  mode. 

SPECIAL  REASONS  FOR  STUDYING  HUMAN  NATURE. 

We  need  to  study  human  nature,  in  the  first  place, 
because  it  illustrates  the  Divine  nature,  which  we  are  to 
interpret  to  men.  Divine  attribute  corresponds  to  our 
idea  of  human  faculty.  The  terms  are  analogous.  You 
cannot  interpret  the  Divine  nature  except  through 


THE  STUDY  OF  HUMAN  NATURE. 


83 


some  knowledge  of  human  nature.  There  are  those 
who  believe  that  God  transcends  men,  not  simply  in 
quality  and  magnitude,  but  in  kind.  Without  under- 
taking to  confirm  or  deny  this,  I  say  that  the  only  part 
of  the  Divine  nature  that  we  can  understand  is  that 
part  which  corresponds  to  ourselves,  and  that  all  which 
lies  outside  of  what  we  can  recognize  is  something  that 
never  can  be  interpreted  by  us.  It  is  not  within  our 
reach.  Whatever  it  may  be,  therefore,  of  God,  that  by 
searching  we  can  find  out,  all  that  we  interpret,  and 
all  that  we  can  bring,  in  its  moral  influence,  to  bear 
upon  men,  is  in  its  study  but  a  higher  form  of  human 
mental  philosophy. 

Now,  let  us  see  what  government  is.  It  is  the  science 
of  managing  men.  What  is  moral  government  ?  It  is 
moral  science,  or  the  theory  upon  which  God  manages 
men.  What  is  the  management  of  men,  again,  but 
a  thing  founded  upon  human  nature  ?  So  that  to 
understand  moral  government  you  are  run  right  back 
to  the  same  necessity.  You  must  comprehend  that  on 
which  God's  moral  government  itself  stands,  which  is 
human  nature. 

But,  again,  the  fundamental  doctrine  on  which  our 
labors  stand  is  the  need  of  the  transformation  of  man's 
nature  by  the  Divine  Spirit.  This  is  altogether  a  ques- 
tion of  psychology.  The  old  theological  way  of  stating 
man's  sinfulness,  namely,  Total  Depravity,"  was  so 
gross  and  so  undiscriminating,  and  was  so  full  of  endless 
misapprehensions,  that  it  has  largely  dropped  out  of 
use.  Men  no  longer  are  accustomed,  I  think,  to  use 
that  term  as  once  they  did.  That  all  men  are  sinful,  is 
taught ;  but    what  is  meant  by '  sinful '  ?  "  is  the  ques- 


84 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


tion  which  immediately  comes  back.  Instantly  the 
schools  begin  to  discuss  it.  Is  it  a  state  of  the  fibre 
of  the  substance  or  the  soul  ?  Is  it  any  aberration,  any 
excess,  any  disproportion  of  natural  elements  ?  Wherein 
does  the  fault  lie  ?  What  is  it  ?  The  moment  you 
discuss  this,  you  are  discussing  human  nature.  It  is 
the  mind  you  are  discussing.  In  order  to  know  what 
is  an  aberration,  you  must  know  what  is  normal.  In 
order  to  know  what  is  in  excess,  you  must  know  what 
is  the  true  measure.  Who  can  tell  whether  a  man  is 
selfish,  unless  he  knows  what  is  benevolent  ?  Who 
can  tell  whether  a  man  has  departed  from  the  correct 
idea,  unless  he  has  some  conception  of  that  idea  ?  The 
very  foundation  on  which  you  stand  to-day  necessitates 
knowledge  of  man  as  its  chief  basis. 

Consider,  too,  how  a  minister,  teaching  the  moral 
government  of  God,  the  nature  of  God,  and  the  con- 
dition of  man  and  his  necessities,  is  obliged  to  approach 
the  human  soul.  Men  are  sluggish,  or  are  so  occupied 
and  filled  with  what  are  to  them  important  interests, 
that,  ordinarily,  when  a  preacher  comes  into  a  com- 
munity, he  finds  it  either  slumbering,  or  averse  to  his 
message,  or  indifferent  to  it ;  and,  in  either  case,  his 
business  is  to  stimulate  the  moral  nature.  But  how 
shall  he  know  the  art  of  stimulating  man's  moral 
nature  who  has  never  studied  it  ?  You  must  arouse 
men  and  prepare  them  to  be  molded.  How  can  you 
do  it  if  you  know  nothing  about  them  ? 

A  man  who  would  minister  to  a  diseased  body  must 
have  an  accurate  knowledge  of  the  organs,  and  of  the 
whole  structure  of  the  body,  in  a  sanitary  condition. 
We  oblige  our  physicians  to  know  anatomy  and  physi- 


THE  STUDY  OF  HUMAN  NATURE. 


85 


ology.  We  oblige  them  to  study  morbid  anatomy,  as 
well  as  normal  conditions.  We  say  that  no  man  is 
prepared  to  practise  without  this  knowledge,  and  the 
law  interferes,  or  does  as  far  as  it  can,  to  compel  it. 
Now,  shall  a  man  know  how  to  administer  to  that 
which  is  a  thousand  times  more  subtle  and  important 
than  the  body,  and  which  is  the  exquisite  blossom  of 
the  highest  development  and  perfection  of  the  human 
system,  namely,  the  mind  in  its  modern  development, 
—  shall  he  assume  to  deal  with  that,  and  raise  and 
stimulate  it,  being  ignorant  of  its  nature  ?  A  man  may 
know  the  Bible  from  Genesis  to  Revelation,  he  may 
know  every  theological  treatise  from  the  day  of  Au- 
gustine to  the  day  of  Dr.  Taylor,  and  if  he  does  not 
understand  human  nature,  he  is  not  fit  to  preach. 

Suppose  a  man  should  undertake  to  cut  off  your  leg 
because  he  had  been  a  tool-maker.  He  had  made  lan- 
cets, probes,  saws,  and  that  sort  of  thing,  all  his  life; 
but  he  had  never  seen  a  man  s  leg  amputated,  and  did 
not  know  exactly  where  the  arteries  or  veins  lie.  Sup- 
pose he  should  think  that  making  surgeons'  tools  fitted 
him  to  be  a  surgeon ;  would  it  ?  The  surgeon  must 
know  his  tools  and  how  to  handle  them,  but  he  must 
know,  too,  the  system  on  which  he  is  going  to  use  them. 
And  shall  a  man,  charged  with  the  care  of  the  soul, 
sharpen  up  his  understanding  with  moral  distinctions 
and  learned  arguments,  and  know  all  about  the  theories 
of  theology  from  Adam  down  to  our  day,  and  yet 
know  nothing  of  the  organism  upon  which  all  these 
instrumentalities  are  to  be  used  ?  Shall  he  know 
nothing  about  man  himself?  The  student  who  goes 
out  to  his  work  with  a- wide  knowledge  of  theology 


86 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHINa. 


and  no  knowledge  of  human  nature  is  not  half  fitted 
for  his  duty.  One  reason  why  so  many  succeed  is, 
that  although  they  have  no  formal  instruction  in  human 
nature,  they  have  learned  much  in  the  family,  and  in 
the  school,  and  by  other  indirect  methods,  and  so  have 
a  certain  stock  —  I  might  say  an  illegitimate  stock  — 
of  knowledge,  but  one  which  was  not  provided  in  the 
system  of  their  studies. 

If  I  might  be  allowed  to  criticise  the  general  theologi- 
cal course,  or  to  recommend  anything  in  relation  to  it,  I 
should  say  that  one  of  the  prime  constituents  of  the 
training  should  be  a  study  of  the  human  soul  and  body 
from  beginning  to  end.  We  must  arouse  and  stimulate 
men,  and  seek  to  bring  them  into  new  relations  with 
truth,  witli  ourselves,  and  with  the  community. 

Every  man  has  a  right  to  go  to  you,  if  you  are  a  min- 
ister who  has  aroused  him  to  a  sense  of  his  relations 
with  God,  and  say  to  you :  "  J^ow,  my  circumstances  and 
temptations  are  thus  and  so  ;  give  me  some  sort  of  a 
chart  for  my  future  guidance."  But  how  can  you,  if 
you  know  nothing  about  human  nature  ?  You  leave 
him  to  fumble  his  way  along  the  best  he  can.  There  is 
no  special  chart  for  him  at  your  hands.  Every  man  has 
to  run  liis  ship  in  a  channel  peculiar  to  himself.  There 
never  were  two  men  in  the  world  that  could  follow  each 
other  like  two  ships  being  piloted  into  New  York  harbor. 
No  two  men  are  alike  ;  therefore,  each  man  has  to  adapt 
to  himself  that  which  is  brought  to  him  for  his  own 
special  use  and  improvement.  What  many  men  need 
is  that  their  minister  shall  be  able  to  form  such  an 
analysis  of  their  nature  that  he  can  suggest  where  such 
a  development  should  be  repressed,  and  where  another 


thp:  study  of  human  nature. 


87 


should  be  stimulated,  and  tell  the  man  how  to  use  him- 
self, socially  as  well  as  morally.  Shall  a  man  be  born 
like  a  little  child  into  the  kingdom  of  Jesus  Christ,  and 
then  be  left  to  shift  for  himself — as  men  mostly  are, 
after  being  admitted  into  the  church  and  talked  to  for 
a  few  weeks  —  after  the  revival  has  spent  its  force  ? 
Shall  they  be  left  to  return  to  their  own  un instructed 
devices,  and  find  their  way,  during  the  rest  of  their 
lives,  as  best  they  can  ?  Thanks  to  the  real  intelli- 
gence of  the  community  and  to  the  heads  of  families, 
there  is  a  great  deal  of  progress  made  in  this  direction ; 
but  how  far  it  arises  from  a  true  ideal  of  preaching  and 
the  administration  of  the  truth  in  the  hands  of  wise 
preachers,  I  cannot  say. 

How  few  ministers  are  there  who  can  really  comfort 
men,  and  how  much  need  of  comforting  there  is  in  this 
w^orld !  How  the  office  of  comforter  has  fallen  into 
disuse  !  How  much  nobler  woman  is  than  man  in  the 
administration  of  this  gospel-gift  from  Jesus  Christ ! 
Woman  is  ordained  to  perform  many  things  much 
better  than  man,  on  account  of  her  superior  delicacy 
of  organization  and  keenness  of  perception.  Woman 
is  a  better  instructor,  from  her  very  make  and  educa- 
tion, and  as  the  molder  and  trainer  of  children  in  the 
household  is  by  far  man's  superior. 

THE  world's  advancement  IN  THOUGHT. 

There  is  another  consideration  that  we  cannot  blink, 
and  that  is,  that  we  are  in  danger  of  liaving  the  intelli- 
gent part  of  society  go  past  us.  The  study  of  human 
nature  is  not  going  to  be  left  in  the  hands  of  the  church 
or  the  ministry.    It  is  going  to  be  a  part  of  every  sys- 


88 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


tern  of  liberal  education,  and  will  be  pursued  on  a 
scientific  basis.  There  is  being  now  applied  among 
scientists  a  greater  amount  of  real,  searching,  discrim- 
inating thought,  tentative  and  experimental,  to  the 
whole  structure  and  functions  of  man  and  the  method 
of  the  development  of  mental  force,  than  ever  has  been 
expended  upon  it  in  the  whole  history  of  the  world  put 
together.  More  men  are  studying  it,  and  they  are 
coming  to  results,  and  these  results  are  starting,  directly 
or  indirectly,  a  certain  kind  of  public  thought  and  feel- 
ing. In  religion,  the  psychological  school  of  mental 
philosophers  are  not  going  to  run  in  the  old  grooves  of 
Christian  doctrine  ;  they  are  not  going  to  hold  the  same 
generic  ideas  respecting  men.  And  if  ministers  do  not 
make  their  theological  systems  conform  to  facts  as  they 
are,  if  they  do  not  recognize  what  men  are  studying, 
the  time  will  not  be  far  distant  when  the  pulpit  will  be 
like  the  voice  crying  in  the  wilderness.  And  it  will 
not  be  Prepare  the  way  of  the  Lord,"  either.  This 
work  is  going  to  be  done.  The  providence  of  God  is 
rolling  forward  a  spirit  of  investigation  that  Christian 
ministers  must  meet  and  join.  There  is  no  class  of 
people  upon  earth  who  can  less  afford  to  let  the  develop- 
ment of  truth  run  ahead  of  them  than  they.  You  cannot 
wrap  yourselves  in  professional  mystery,  for  the  glory 
of  the  Lord  is  such  that  it  is  preached  with  power 
throughout  all  the  length  and  breadth  of  the  world, 
by  these  investigators  of  his  wondrous  creation.  You 
cannot  go  back  and  become  apostles  of  the  dead  past, 
drivelling  after  ceremonies,  and  letting  the  world  do  the 
thinking  and  studying.  There  must  be  a  new  spirit 
infused  into  the  ministry.     Some  men  are  so  afraid 


THE  STUDY  OF  HUMAN  NATURE. 


89 


that,  in  breaking  away  from  the  old  systems  and  origi- 
nal forms  and  usages,  Christianity  will  get  the  go-by  ! 
Christianity  is  too  vital,  too  really  Divine  in  its  inner- 
most self,  to  fear  any  such  results.  There  is  no  trouble 
about  Christianity.  You  take  care  of  yourselves  and 
of  men,  and  learn  the  truth  as  God  shows  it  to  you  all 
the  time,  and  you  need  not  be  afraid  of  Christianity  ; 
that  will  take  care  of  itself.  You  might  as  well  be 
afraid  that  battles  would  rend  the  sky,  or  that  some- 
thing would  stop  the  rising  and  setting  of  the  sun. 
The  power  of  Divine  love  and  mercy  is  not  going  to 
be  stopped,  and  will  certainly  not  be  stopped  by  the 
things  that  are  true. 

You  cannot  afford  to  shut  your  eyes  to  the  truths  of 
human  nature.  Every  Christian  minister  is  bound  to 
fairly  look  at  these  things.  Every  scientific  man  who 
is  studying  human  nature  is  bound  to  open  his  eyes 
and  ears,  and  to  study  all  its  phenomena.  I  read  that 
Huxley  refused  to  attend  a  seance  of  Spiritualists.  He 
said,  contemptuously,  that  it  was  a  waste  of  time,  and 
gave  expression  to  other  sentiments  of  disdain.  I  am 
not  an  adherent  of  the  spiritual  doctrines  ;  I  have  never 
seen  my  way  clear  to  accept  them.  But  phenomena 
which  are  wrapping  up  millions  of  men  and  vitally 
affecting  their  condition  are  not  to  be  disdained  by 
scientific  men,  whose  business  it  is  to  study  phenome- 
nology of  all  kinds.  No  scientific  man  can  rightly 
refuse  to  examine  them.  He  may  say  that  he  has  no 
time  to  do  it,  and  that  some  other  man  must  investi- 
gate them.  That  would  be  right.  All  men  cannot  do 
all  things.  But  to  speak  of  anything  of  this  kind  with 
contempt  is  not  wise.    I  am  not  afraid  to  look  at  this 


90 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


thing,  or  anything.  I  am  not  afraid  tliat  we  are  going 
to  have  the  New  Testament  taken  away  from  us.  We 
must  be  more  industrious  in  investigation,  more  honest 
in  deduction,  and  more  willing  to  take  the  truth  in  its 
new  fullness ;  and  we  must  be  imbued  with  that  sim- 
plicity in  faith  and  truth  which  we  inculcate  in  our 
people. 

HOW  TO  STUDY  HUMAN  NATURE. 

With  this  general  statement  of  the  necessity  of  the 
study  of  the  human  nature  and  mind  in  its  structure 
and  functions,  I  will  pass  on  to  the  next  point,  which 
is  the  way  in  wdiich  this  study  is  to  be  prosecuted. 
Ho^  are  we  going  about  it  ? 

the  first  place,  you  must  study  facts,  scientifi- 
cally. I  think  that  such  works  as  Bain's,  while  criti- 
cisable  in  many  directions,  are  nevertheless  w^orks  of 
very  great  interest  as  showing  a  wise  tendency  in  the 
investigation  of  the  mind  of  man,  —  the  founding  of 
mental  philosophy  upon  physiology.  I  do  not  com- 
mend the  system  in  all  its  particulars,  but  I  speak  of 
its  tendency,  w^hich  is  in  the  right  direction.  I  would 
say  the  same,  also,  of  Herbert  Spencer  s  works.  There 
is  much  in  him  that  I  believe  wdll  be  found  sovereign 
and  noble  in  the  final  account  of  truth,  when  our 
knowledge  of  it  is  rounded  up.  There  was  never  a 
field  of  wheat  that  ripened  which  did  not  have  a  good 
deal  of  straw  and  husk  with  it.  I  doubt  not  but  Her- 
bert Spencer  will  have  much  straw  and  husk  that  will 
need  to  be  burned.  Nevertheless,  the  direction  he  is 
moving  in  is  a  wise  one,  which  is  the  study  of  human 
nature,  of  the  totality  of  man, 


THE  STUDY  OF  HUMAN  NATURE. 


91 


It  was  believed  once  that  man  did  not  think  by  the 
brain.  I  believe  that  notion  has  gone  by.  Most  men 
now  admit  that  the  brain  is  the  organ  of  the  mind.  It 
is  held  that  it  cannot  be  partitioned  off  into  provinces, 
and  that  there  are  no  external  indications  of  its  various 
functions.  I  shall  not  dispute  that  question  with  you. 
It  is  now  generally  conceded  that  there  is  an  organiza- 
tion which  we  call  the  nervous  system  in  the  human 
body,  to  which  belong  the  functions  of  emotion,  intel- 
ligence, and  sensation,  and  that  that  is  connected  inti- 
mately with  the  whole  circulation  of  the  blood,  with 
the  condition  of  the  blood  as  affected  by  the  liver  and 
by  aeration  in  the  lungs ;  that  the  manufacture  of  the 
blood  is  dependent  upon  the  stomach.  So  a  man  is 
what  he  is,  not  in  one  part  or  another,  but  all  over  ;  one 
part  is  intimately  connected  with  the  other,  from  the 
animal  stomach  to  the  throbbing  brain ;  and  when  a 
man  thinks,  he  thinks  the  whole  trunk  through.  Man's 
power  comes  from  the  generating  forces  that  are  in 
him,  namely,  the  digestion  of  nutritious  food  into  vital- 
ized blood,  made  fine  by  oxygenation  ;  an  organization 
by  which  that  blood  has  free  course  to  run  and  be  glo- 
rified ;  a  neck  that  will  allow  the  blood  to  flow  up  and 
down  easily  ;  a  brain  properly  organized  and  balanced  ; 
the  whole  system  so  compounded  as  to  have  suscep- 
tibilities and  recuperative  force  ;  immense  energy  to 
generate  resources  and  facility  to  give  them  out ;  —  all 
these  elements  go  to  determine  what  a  man's  working 
power  is.  And  shall  a  man  undertake  to  study  human 
nature,  everything  depending  upon  his  knowledge  of  it, 
and  not  study  the  prime  conditions  under  which  human 
nature  must  exist  ? 


92  LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 

I  have  often  seen  young  ministers  sit  at  the  table, 
and  even  those  of  sixty  years  of  age,  eating  out  of  all 
proportion,  beyond  the  necessities  of  their  systems ; 
and  I  have  seen,  on  the  other  hand,  ministers  who  ate 
below  the  necessities  of  their  systems,  under  a  vague 
impression  that  sanctifying  grace  wrought  better  on 
an  empty  stomach  than  on  a  full  one.  It  seems  to  me 
that  all  Divine  grace  and  Divine  instruments  honor 
God's  laws  everywhere  ;  and  that  the  best  condition 
for  grace  in  the  mental  system  is  that  in  which  the 
human  body  is  in  a  perfect  state  of  health.  That  is  a 
question  which  every  man  can  best  settle  for  himself. 
Some  men  under-sleep,  and  some  over-sleep ;  some  eat 
too  much,  and  some  too  little.  Some  men  use  stimu- 
lants who  do  not  need  them,  while  others  avoid  them 
who  need  them,  and  would  be  better  for  their  use. 
There  is  a  vast  amount  of  truth  relative  to  the  indi- 
vidual that  is. not  studied  by  the  minister,  though  it 
ought  to  be,  as  to  the  incoming  and  the  outflow  of 
force.  Some  clergymen  prepare  themselves  to  preach 
on  Sunday  by  sitting  up  very  late  on  Saturday  night, 
and  exhausting  their  vitality,  thus  compelling  them- 
selves to  force  their  overtasked  powers  to  extraordi- 
nary exertion  to  perform  their  Sabbath  duties;  which 
entails  upon  them  the  horrors  of  Blue  Monday,  the  re- 
sult of  a  spasmodic  and  drastic  excitement.  It  is,  and 
it  ought  to  be,  a  purgatory  to  them.  You  must  study 
yourselves  as  men.  Is  there  no  self-knowledge  that 
can  be  acquired,  so  that  a  man  shall  know  how  to  be 
merciful  to  his  beast  ? 

You  see  that  whatever  relates  to  the  whole  organiza- 
tion of  the  human  body  and  its  relations  to  health  and 


THE  STUDY  OF  HUMAN  NATURE. 


93 


to  perfect  symmetry  must  be  studied,  for  all  these  re- 
lations are  intimate,  and  concern  both  your  own  work- 
ing powers  and  the  material  among  men  that  you  will 
have  to  work  on. 

METAPHYSICAL  STUDIES.  ^ 

In  studying  mental  philosophy  after  this  fashion  I 
would  not  have  you  ignore  metaphysics.  The  percep- 
tions of  those  subtle  relations,  near  and  remote,  specific 
and  generic,  that  obtain  among  spiritual  facts  of  differ- 
ent kinds,  I  understand  to  be  metaphysics  ;  and  that,  I 
suppose,  must  be  studied.  I  think  it  sharpens  men, 
and  renders  them  familiar  with  the  operations  of  the 
human  mind,  if  not  carried  too  far,  and  gives  them  a 
grasp  and  penetration  that  they  would  not  get  other- 
wise. It  is  favorable  to  moral  insight,  when  developed 
in  connection  with  the  other  sides  of  human  nature. 
While  I  say  that  you  ought  to  study  mental  philosophy 
with  a  strong  physiological  side  to  it,  I  do  not  wish  it 
to  be  understood  that  I  decry  mental  philosophy  with 
a  strong  metaphysical  side  to  it. 

PHRENOLOGY  AS  A  CONVENIENT  BASIS. 

There  is  one  question  beyond  that.  The  impor- 
tance of  studying  both  sides  of  mental  philosophy 
for  the  sake  of  religious  education  is  one  point ;  but 
when  the  question  comes  up  how  to  study  mental 
philosophy,  I  do  not  know  anything  that  can  compare 
in  facility  of  usableness  with  phrenology.  I  do  not 
suppose  that  phrenology  is  a  perfect  system  of  mental 
philosophy.  It  hits  here  and  there.  It  needs  revising, 
as,  in  its  present  shape,  it  is  crude ;  but  nevertheless 


94 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


when  it  becomes  necessary  to  talk  to  people  about 
themselves,  I  know  of  no  other  nomenclature  which  so 
nearly  expresses  what  we  need,  and  which  is  so  facile 
in  its  use,  as  phrenology.  Nothing  can  give  you  the 
formulated  analysis  of  mind  as  that  can.  Now  let  me 
say,  particularly,  a  few  things  about  this,  and  personally, 
too.  I  suppose  I  inherited  from  my  father  a  tendency 
or  intuition  to  read  man.  The  very  aptitude  that  I  rec- 
ognize in  myself  for  the  exercise  of  this  power  would 
indicate  a  pre-existing  tendency.  In  my  junior  college 
year  I  became,  during  the  visit  of  Spurzheim,  enamored 
of  phrenology.  For  twenty  years,  although  T  have  not 
made  it  a  special  study,  it  has  been  the  foundation  on 
which  I  have  worked.  Admit,  if  you  please,  it  is  not 
exactly  the  true  thing ;  and  admit,  if  you  will,  that 
there  is  little  form  or  system  in  it ;  yet  I  have  worked 
with  it  much  as  botanists  worked  with  the  Linnsean 
system  of  botany,  the  classification  of  which  is  very 
convenient,  although  an  artificial  one.  There  is  no 
natural  system  that  seems  to  correspond  to  human 
nature  so  nearly  as  phrenology  does. 

For  example,  you  assume  that  a  man's  brain  is  the 
general  organ  of  the  spiritual  and  intellectual  functions. 

I  see  a  man  with  a  small  brow  and  big  in  the  lower 
part  of  his  head,  like  a  bull,  and  I  know  that  that  man 
is  not  likely  to  be  a  saint.  All  the  reasoning  in  the 
world  would  not  convince  me  of  the  contrary,  but  I 
would  say  of  such  a  man,  that  he  had  very  intense 
ideas,  and  would  bellow  and  push  like  a  bull  of  Bashan. 
Now,  practically,  do  you  suppose  I  would  commence  to 
treat  with  such  a  man  by  flaunting  a  rag  in  his  face  ? 
My  first  instinct  in  regard  to  him  is  what  a  man  would 


THE  STUDY  OF  HUMAN  NATURE. 


95 


have  if  he  found  himself  in  a  field  with  a  wild  bull, 
which  w^ould  be  to  put  himself  on  good  manners,  and 
use  means  of  conciliation,  if  possible.  ^ 

On  the  other  hand,  if  I  see  a  man  whose  forehead 
is  very  high  and  large,  but  who  is  thin  in  the  back  of 
the  head,  and  with  a  small  neck  and  trunk,  I  say  to  my- 
self. That  is  a  man,  probably,  whose  friends  are  always 
talking  about  how  much  there  is  in  him,  but  who  never 
does  anything.  He  is  a  man  who  has  great  organs,  but 
nothing  to  drive  them  wdth.  He  is  like  a  splendid 
locomotive  without  a  boiler.  ,  

Again,  you  will  see  a  man  wdth  a  little  bullet-head, 
having  accomplished  more  than  that  big-headed  man, 
who  ought  to  have  been  a  strong  giant  and  a  great 
genius.  The  bullet-headed  man  has  outstripped  the 
broad-browed  mail  in  everything  he  undertook  ;  and  peo- 
ple say, "  Where  is  your  phrenology  ?  "  In  reply,  I  say. 
Look  at  that  bullet-headed  man,  and  see  what  he  has  to 
drive  his  bullet-head  with  ! "  His  stomach  gives  evidence 
that  he  has  natural  forces  to  carry  forward  his  purposes. 
Then  look  at  the  big-headed  man.  He  can't  make  a 
spoonful  of  blood  in  twenty-four  hours,  and  what  he 
does  make  is  poor  and  thin.  Phrenology  classifies  the 
brain  regions  well  enough,  but  you  must  understand  its 
relations  to  physiology,  and  the  dependence  of  brain- 
V/ork  upon  the  quantity  and  quality  of  blood  that  the 
man's  body  makes.  ~ 

You  may  ask,  "  What  is  the  use  of  knowing  these 
things  ? "  All  the  use  in  the  world.  If  a  person  comes 
to  me,  with  dark,  coarse  hair,  I  know  he  is  tough  and 
enduring,  and  I  know  that,  if  it  is  necessary,  I  can  hit 
him  a  rap  to  arouse  him ;  but  if  I  see  a  person  who  has 


96 


LECTUBES  ON  I^REACHINC. 


fine  silky  hair,  and  a  light  complexion,  I  know  that  he 
is  of  an  excitable  temperament,  and  must  be  dealt  with 
soothingly.  Again,  if  I  see  one  with  a  large  blue  watery 
eye,  and  its  accompanying  complexion,  I  say  to  myself 
that  all  Mount  Sinai  could  not  wake  that  man  up.  I 
have  seen  men  of  that  stamp,  whom  you  could  no  more 
stimulate  to  action,  than  you  could  a  lump  of  dough  by 
blowing  a  resurrection  trump  over  it. 

Men  are  like  open  books,  if  looked  at  properly.  Sup- 
pose I  attempt  to  analyze  a  man's  deeds ;  I  can  do  it 
with  comparative  facility,  because  I  have  in  my  eye  the 
general  outline  of  the  man's  disposition  and  mental  ten- 
dencies. A  deed  is  like  a  letter  stamped  from  a  die. 
The  motive  that  directs  the  deed  is  like  the  matrix  that 
molds  the  stamp.  You  may  know  the  mold  from  the 
impression  made  by  the  stamp.  You  must  know  what 
men  are,  in  order  to  reach  them,  and  that  is  a  part  of 
the  science  of  preaching.  If  there  is  any  profession  in 
the  world  that  can  afford  to  be  without  this  practical 
knowledge  of  human  nature,  it  certainly  is  not  the  pro- 
fession of  a  pr'&acher. 

While  I  urge  the  study  of  man  from  the  scientific 
side,  let  me  say,  also,  that  this  study  is  not  enough, 
and  that  what  we  need  is  not  simply  this  elementary 
analytical  knowledge.  We  must  study  human  nature 
for  constructive  purposes,  also.  That  is  the  differen3e 
between  a  true  preacher  and  an  incompetent  one. 

The  lawyer  must  study  human  nature,  in  order  to 
get  at  the  facts  of  his  case ;  the  merchant,  for  the  sake 
of  his  own  profits ;  the  politician,  for  the  sake  of  carry- 
ing out  certain  political  ends  ;  but  these  do  not  imply 
that  men  are  to  be  made  better  or  worse.    A  minister 


THE  STUDY  OF  HUMAN  NATURE. 


97 


studies  human  nature  for  the  purpose  of  regenerating 
men.  We  study  men  as  florists  do  flowers,  when  they 
wish  to  change  them  from  simple  blossoms  into  rare 
beauties.  The  object  of  the  florist  is  to  make  them 
larger,  to  enhance  their  color  or  fragrance,  or  whatever 
other  change  is  desired.  It  is  to  make  more  out  of 
human  nature  than  we  originally  find  in  it,  that  we  are 
studying  it  and  training  it. 

SOCIAL  HABITS. 

You  must  be  familiar  with  men  ;  and  you  are  fortu- 
nate if  you  have  been  brought  up  in  a  public  school. 
There  is  a  good  deal  of  human  nature  learned  by  boys 
among  boys,  and  by  young  men  among  young  men. 
That  is  one  of  the  arguments  in  favor  of  large 
gatherings  of  young  men.  A  man  who  has  struggled 
out  from  between  the  stones  of  the  farm,  and  has  fought 
his  way  through  the  academy,  with  the  pity  of  every- 
body, —  a  pity  which  might  well  be  spared,  because  it 
was  God's  training,  —  has  a  fine  education  for  prac- 
tical life,  because  he  knows  men.  The  study  of  man  is 
the  highest  of  sciences. 

Besides  this  general  knowledge  we  are  to  have,  we 
should  take  kindly  to  individual  men,  for  the  very  pur- 
pose of  studying  them.  Now,  I  take  great  delight,  if 
ever  I  can  get  a  chance,  in  riding  on  the  top  of  an 
omnibus  with  the  driver,  and  talking  with  him.  What 
do  I  gain  by  that  ?  Why,  my  sympathy  goes  out  for 
these  men,  and  I  recognize  in  them  an  element  of 
brotherhood, — that  great  human  element  which  lies 
underneath  all  culture,  which  is  more  universal  and 
more  important  than  all  special  attributes,  which  is  the 


98 


LECTUKES  ON  PREACHING. 


great  generic  bond  of  humanity  between  man  and  man. 
If  ever  I  saw  one  of  those  men  in  my  church,  I  could 
preach  to  him,  and  hit  him  under  the  fifth  rib  with  an 
illustration,  much  better  than  if  I  had  not  been  ac- 
quainted with  him.  I  have  driven  the  truth  under 
many  a  plain  jacket.  But,  wliat  is  more,  I  never  found 
a  plain  man  in  this  world  who  could  not  tell  me  mair^S 
things  that  I  did  not  know  before.  There  is  not  a  gate- 
keeper at  the  Fulton  Ferry,  or  an  engineer  or  deck- 
hand on  the  boats,  that  I  am  not  acquainted  with,  and 
they  help  me  in  more  ways  than  they  know  of.  If  you 
are  going  to  be  a  minister,  keep  very  close  to  plain 
folks  ;  don't  get  above  the  common  people. 

There  is  no  danger  that  you  will  lose  your  sympathy 
with  culture  and  refinement,  as  some  people  seem  to 
fear.  There  is  no  danger  that  you  will  lose  your  purity 
and  sensitiveness.  There  will  be  nothing  incompatible 
in  this  course  with  the  performance  of  your  professional 
duties  as  a  preacher.  Good-heartedness  and  good, 
plain,  hearty  sympathy  with  men,  will  help  everything 
in  you  which  ought  to  be  helped,  and  diminish  those 
things  which  ought  to  be  diminished.  Study  human 
nature  by  putting  yourself  in  alliance  with  men.  See 
how  a  mother,  that  best  of  philosophers  in  practical 
matters,  understands  every  one  of  her  children  and  the 
special  differences  between  them  all ;  and  does  she  not 
carry  herself  with  true  intuition  as  to  their  daily  needs, 
and  with  the  interpreting  philosophy  of  sensitive  love  ? 
She  is  the  best  trainer  of  men,  and  has  the  best  mental 
philosophy,  so  far  as  practical  things  are  concerned. 

There  is  but  one  other  point.  While  you  study  men 
scientifically,  in  regard  to  the  fundamental  elements 


THE  STUDY  OF  HUMAN  NATURE.  99  . 

of  human  nature,  and  again  by  sympathies  and  kindly 
relations  to  individuals  to  learn  them  well,  you  must 
be  much  among  them,  generally.  You  must  act  with 
men.  Learn  to  be  needful  to  them  and  to  use  them. 
A  minister  who  stays  in  his  study  all  the  week  long, 
and  makes  his  appearance  only  in  his  pulpit  to  preach, 
may  do  some  good,  of  a  certain  sort ;  but  the  preacher 
must  be  a  man  among  men.  Keep  out  among  the 
people.  I  do  not  mean  to  say  that  you  ought  to  make 
a  great  many  pastoral  visits,  but  that  society — men, 
women,  and  children,  of  all  sorts  —  ought  to  be  your 
continual  and  familiar  acquaintances.  Books  alone 
are  not  enough.  Studying  is  not  enough.  There  is  a 
training  for  you  in  the  actual  daily  contact  with  men, 
of  mind  with  mind,  which  will  keep  you  down,  and 
you  will  not  have  so  much  professional  pride.  You 
will  find  many  men  abler  than  you,  and  a  good  many 
men  who  are  better  qualified  to  teach  grace  to  you 
than  you  are  to  teach  them.  You  will  often  find  how 
very  superficial  has  been  your  teaching  to  men.  No 
man  will  find  a  better  study  than  where  the  droojiing 
heart  is  laid  bare  to  him,  or  where  the  ever-flashing 
intelligence  is  acting  in  his  presence.  There  you  can 
see  what  your  work  has  been,  and  what  it  is  to  be  in 
the  future. 

QUESTIONS  AND  ANSWERS. 

Q.  Can  a  minister  be  eminent  both  as  a  pastor  and  as  a 
preacher  ? 

Mr.  Beecher.  —  Yes.  It  will  depend,  however,  upon 
how  large  his  pastorate  is,  and  how  much  he  undertakes 
to  do.    A  man  may  not  be  able  to  take  a  large  care  of 


100 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


individual  souls,  and  yet  study  in  such  a  way  as  to  be 
able  to  meet  the  exigencies  of  a  city  pulpit,  or  any  labor 
of  that  kind  which  requires  exceeding  freshness  and 
newness ;  he  must  make  an  average.  He  must  keep  up 
his  pulpit,  but  at  the  same  time  he  must  keep  up  his 
knowledge  of  human  nature,  and  if  he  can  have  no 
substitute  or  assistant  he  must  do  pastoral  work.  I  do 
very  little  of  it  myself,  but  have  many  assistants,  and 
the  work  is  done. 

Q.  Has  not  science  demonstrated  that  phrenology  is  imper- 
fect? 

Mr.  Beecher. —  I  do  not  know  that  science  has 
demonstrated  it.  Those  who  are  best  acquainted  with 
it  are  conscious  that  with  some  crudenesses  it  contains  a 
great  many  elements  of  truth,  and  that  it  is  one  of  the 
tendencies  in  the  right  direction ;  and  when  the  knowl- 
edge of  the  human  mind  shall  be  finally  made  clear,  I 
think  it  will  be  found  that  much  has  been  owing  to 
phrenology. 

Q.  Would  you  recommend  the  study  of  Hebrew  as  part  of  a 
theological  course  ? 

Mr.  Beecher.  —  There  are  a  great  many  who  are 
naturally  called  to  scholarship,  and  who  should  educate 
themselves  with  a  view  to  contribute  to  the  learning 
of  the  day.  A  man  who  has  that  turn  of  mind  is  wise 
to  study  Hebrew.  Some  study  of  it  is  beneficial  in 
other  respects.  I  do  not  think  that  the  amount  of 
study  required  in  our  theological  seminaries  will  hurt 
anybody.  You  need  not  scoff  at  any  part  of  the  study 
as  if  it  were  a  surplusage.  There  is  nothing  that  is 
taught  here  that  you  will  not  thank  God  for  in  the 


THE  STUDY  OF  HUMAN  NATURE. 


101 


course  of  your  life.  You  can  save  yourselves  a  vast 
amount  of  trouble  hereafter  by  faithful  study  now. 

Q.  How  much  time  ought  a  minister  to  spend  in  examining  his 
text  in  the  original  ? 


Mr.  Beecher.  —  Well,  just  as  much  as  is  necessary  I 
to  get  the  real  spirit  of  the  text,  and  that  will  depend 
upon  yourself.  If  I  should  conclude  to  study  my  text 
from  the  Old  Testament,  in  Hebrew,  I  think  it  would 
take  me  most  of  the  week  to  ascertain  what  it  was  !  I 
o^et  alonff  better  with  the  New  Testament. 

Question  by  Dr.  Bacon.  —  How  far  should  a  preacher  imitate 
the  example  of  Christ,  and  give  utterance  to  truths  which  are 
disagreeable  to  the  hearer  ? 

Mr.  Beecher.  —  No  rule  whatever  can  be  given  in 
regard  to  that.  Whatever  provocation  arises  from  the 
preacher's  manner  or  untowardness,  of  course,  is  blame- 
worthy in  him.  If  he  will  speak  truths  meet  for 
persons  to  hear,  let  him  learn  "  speaking  the  truth  in 
love."  Instruct  in  meekness  those  who  oppose  you,  for 
peradventure  God  shall  give  them  repentance.  And 
if  you  are  speaking  the  truth,  it  is  essential  that  those 
who  hear  you  believe  you  are  sincere  before  you  can 
work  with  them. 

But  manner  is  much.  In  the  early  abolition  days 
two  men  went  out  preaching,  one  an  old  Quaker,  and 
another  a  young  raan  full  of  fire.  When  the  Quaker 
lectured,  everything  ran  along  very  smoothly,  and  he 
carried  the  audience  with  him.  When  the  young  man 
lectured,  there  was  a  row^,  and  stones,  and  eggs.  It 
became  so  noticeable  that  the  young  man  spoke  to  the  ^ 
Quaker  about  it.    He  said,  "  Friend,  you  and  I  are  on 


102 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


the  same  mission,  and  preach  the  same  things ;  and 
how  is  it  that  while  you  are  received  cordially  I  get 
nothing  but  abuse  ?  "  The  Quaker  replied,  "  I  will  tell 
thee.  Thee  says,  '  If  you  do  so  and  so,  you  shall  be 
punished,'  and  I  say,  '  My  friends,  if  you  will  not  do  so 
and  so,  you  shall  not  be  punished.' "  They  both  said 
the  same  things,  but  there  was  a  great  deal  of  differ- 
ence in  the  way  they  said  it. 

Q.  Is  it  not  true  that  Spurgeon  is  a  follower  of  Calvin  ?  and  is 
he  not  an  eminent  example  of  success  ? 

Mr.  Beecher.  —  In  spite  of  it,  yes ;  but  I  do  not 
know  that  the  camel  travels  any  better,  or  is  any  more 
useful  as  an  animal,  for  the  hump  on  its  back. 

Q.  May  not  a  man  be  too  self-conscious  in  his  preaching  ? 

Mr.  Beecher.  —  Yes,  but  every  preacher  must  watch 
his  own  tendencies,  and  labor  to  counteract  the  excess 
of  them.  In  astronomy,  they  have  always  to  make  an 
equation  of  corrections.  Every  man  has  his  own  equa- 
tion. The  different  nervous  activities  of  men  make  a 
difference  in  the  observations  of  different  astronomers. 
Every  great  astronomer  has  his  own  personal  equation, 
which  is  generally  known.  That  must  be  calculated 
for,  in  using  his  observations.  So,  every  minister  ought 
to  have  his  personal  equation,  and  he  ought  to  use  it 
himself  all  the  time.  One  man  says,  "  I  am  inclined 
by  nature  to  take  the  cautious  and  the  fearful  view." 
Xow,  he  must  take  pains  to  look  on  the  hopeful 
side  of  everything !  Another  man  says,  "  I  am  in- 
clined to  benevolent  views,"  and  he  must  strive  to 
bring  out  the  conscience  element.  You  see  the  appli- 
cation. 


THE  STUDY  OF  HUMAN  NATURE. 


103 


Q.  What  proportion  of  the  study  of  human  nature  ought  to  be 
found  in  books,  novels,  etc.  ? 

Mr.  Beecher.  —  You  can  give  no  proportion,  as 
you  can  in  a  physician's  prescription,  for  the  simple 
reason  that  men  learn  with  different  facilities.  Some 
men  will  learn  more  in  six  months  from  free  intercourse 
with  people  than  other  men  will  learn  in  six  years. 
There  is  nothing  in  this  world  that  will  take  away  from 
a  man  the  responsibility  of  finding  out  things  for  him- 
self. The  principle  being  given,  you  must  find  out 
what  you  yourself  need  in  the  different  methods  of 
working  and  the  proportions  of  them. 


V. 


THE  PSYCHOLOGICAL  WORKING-ELEMENTS. 

February  14,  1872. 

T  is  somewhat  difficult  to  reduce  to  anything 
like  precision  many  of  the  directions  which 
I  shall  attempt  to  give  you,  young  gentle- 
men, because  your  course  will  be  determined 
so  much  by  circumstances,  that  what  might  be  true  at 
•one  time  would  not  be  true  at  another. 

CIRCUMSTANCES  ALTER  CASES. 

For  instance,  in  regard  to  preaching,  the  field  into 
which  you  go  will  have  very  much  to  do  with  it,  both 
as  to  its  manner  and  the  preparation  you  will  make 
for  it.  A  man  set  in  an  uncultivated  field  in  the  far 
West,  among  the  rude  pioneers,  would,  both  inwardly 
and  outwardly,  use  a  different  method  from  that  which 
he  would  employ  in  an  old  and  cultivated  community, 
where  the  church  had  been  organized  for  a  long  time, 
and  where  the  men  and  women  had  been  well  instructed 
—  drilled,  indeed  —  in  casuistical  and  doctrinal  theol- 
ogy, its  principles  and  truths.  You  would  not  think 
of  preaching  elaborate  sermons  in  doctrinal  sequence, 
going  among  people  who  had  been  utterly  unused  to 


THE  PSYCHOLOGICAL  WOEKING-ELEMENTS.  105 

any  such  course  as  this.  In  a  new  community  good 
sense  would  teach  you  at  once,  and  if  it  did  not,  neces- 
sity would  very  quickly  teach  you,  that  you  could  not 
preach  as  you  w^ould  in  the  old  pulpit.  My  early  min- 
istry was  spent  in  the  West,  and  I  had  the  opportunity 
of  seeing,  time  and  again,  ministers  from  parishes  in 
the  East,  coming  out  into  the  scattered  populations  of 
the  West,  made  up  from  every  quarter  of  the  w^orld  ; 
and  it  was  an  edifying  spectacle  to  see  the  amazement, 
the  gradual  awakening,  the  chagrin,  the  confusion,  the 
embarrassment,  the  glimpse  of  hope,  the  putting  out 
of  the  new  method,  the  readaptation,  and,  finally, 
the  successful  issue  of  these  new  ministers  into  their 
new"  work ;  for  they  had  to  be  acclimated,  not  in  body 
alone,  but  in  preaching  as  well.  So,  I  say  that  what 
would  help  you  on  the  supposition  that  you  were  to 
settle  in  the  East  might  be  of  very  little  importance 
to  you  if  you  were  going  to  settle  West,  in  Montana, 
for  instance,  or  in  Texas,  at  the  South. 

WRITING  AND  EXTEMPORIZING. 

Then,  again,  different  personal  temperaments  and 
habits  may  have  very  much  to  do  wdth  your  mode  of 
preaching ;  and  the  ever-open  question  comes  up,  "  Shall 
I  write  my  sermons,  or  shall  I  extemporize  ?  "  That 
depends,  to  a  very  considerable  extent,  upon  a  man's 
temperament.  If  he  be  extremely  sensitive  and  fas- 
tidious by  nature,  and,  withal,  somewhat  secretive  and 
cautious,  it  would  frequently  be  almost  impossible  for 
him  to  extemporize  with  fluency.  Sometimes  men  are 
so  oppressed  under  the  influence  of  an  audience  that 
they  cannot  possibly  think  in  its  presence.  Drill  and 
5* 


106 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


long  habit  may  alter  this ;  but  still,  if  it  is  rooted  in  a 
man's  nature,  he  may  never  conquer  it.  And  after  all, 
the  real  thing  for  him  to  do  is  to  preach,  and  whether 
he  write  his  sermon  or  speak  it  without  writing,  let  him 
see  that  he  trains  himself  to  do  his  work.  This  ques- 
tion is  the  same  as  asking,  "  Is  it  best  for  a  man  wdio 
is  going  hunting  to  take  out  cartridge-shells  already 

y  loaded  for  his  gun,  or  shall  he  take  loose  ammunition 
and  load  with  powder  and  shot,  according  to  circumstan- 
ces, every  time  he  is  going  to  shoot  ? "  Now  that  is  a 
fair  question,  and  there  is  a  great  deal  to  be  said  on  the 
subject.  But,  after  all,  the  man  who  goes  where  the 
game  is,  always  finding  it  and  bringing  it  home  with 
him,  is  the  best  hunter  ;  and  I  care  not  whether  he  carry 
fixed  or  loose  ammunition.  That  is  the  best  cat  that 
catches  the  most  rats.  And  in  your  case  that  will  be 
the  best  form  of  sermon  that  does  the, work  of  a  ser- 

:  mon  the  best.  If  you  can  do  best  by  writing,  write  your 
sermons ;  and  if  you  can  do  better  by  not  writing,  do 
not  write  them. 

This  merely  by  way  of  illustrating  the  difficulty 
there  is  in  giving  specific  directions  in  matters  of 
preaching. 

VARIATIONS  OF  DENOMINATIONAL  SERVICE. 

There  is  another  modifying  circumstance  that  comes 
in,  and  that  is  the  church  economy  through  which 
you  undertake  to  administer. 

You  go  out  into  a  community,  and  find  it  already 
organized.  Some  of  you  will  very  possibly  officiate  in 
the  Episcopal  Church,  while  others  of  you  will  find 
yourselves  in  the  Methodist,  Baptist,  Presbyterian,  or 


THE  PSYCHOLOGICAL  WORKING-ELEMENTS.  107 

Congregational  churches,  and  some  even,  perhaps,  in 
the  Roman  Catholic  Church. 

Now  you  may  ask,  What  difference  does  the  church 
make  ?  Is  not  man  the  same,  no  matter  what  church 
he  is  in  ?  But  really  there  are  two  great  churches : 
those  who  believe  that  God  works  by  the  power  of  the 
truth,  and  according  to  the  great  natural  laws  ;  and 
those  who  believe,  in  addition  to  this,  that  he  works 
through  a  church  organization  of  a  definite  character, 
which  has  in  it  certain  specified  and  ordained  channels. 
And,  in  point  of  fact,  in  proportion  as  churches  or  par- 
ishes are  organized  according  to  this  last  belief  will  the 
amount  of  preaching  be  less.  There  is  less  of  it  for 
the  obvious  reason  that  the  church  economy  requires  so 
much  time  and  labor  in  other  directions.  You  have  to 
keep  going  the  great  organism  in  which  grace  inheres, 
and  you  worship  by  means  of  certain  forms,  ordinances, 
sacraments,  and  persons,  all  of  whom  are,  in  a  sense, 
sacred;  and  you  are  obliged  to  give  a  great  deal  of 
your  attention  and  care  to  the  administration  of  that 
economy. 

You  will  find  in  the  Episcopal  Church  —  and  I  do 
not  say  whether  it  is  best  or  not  —  that  the  average 
duration  of  the  sermon  is  twenty  or  twenty-five  min- 
utes, the  service  occupying  an  hour  and  a  half  or  two 
hours,  not  one  eighth  of  which  is  occupied  in  preach- 
ing. They  depend  upon  the  reading  of  the  Scriptures, 
upon  their  musical  services,  and  upon  their  forms  of 
prayer,  the  sermon  being  but  a  minor  thing  among 
many  considered  more  important.  On  the  other  hand, 
churches  like  the  Presbyterian,  the  Baptist,  and  the 
Congregational  have  no  liturgy,  and  no  elaborate  church 


108 


LECTUHES  ON  PREACHING. 


service ;  they  are  obliged  to  emphasize  that  which  they 
have,  and  the  sermon  becomes  the  chief  thing  in  such 
denominations.  That  is  the  power  they  hold  in  their 
hand;  and  if  they  cannot  wield  tliat  they  can  wield 
nothing ;  for  besides  that  there  is  very  little,  I  am  sorry 
to  say,  that  is  effectual  in  the  work  of  their  ministry, 
—  and  that  is  the  weak  spot  in  our  scheme. 

Although  there  is  a  great  deal  of  preaching  in  the 
Methodist  Church  (as  developed  under  Wesleyan  teach- 
ings), yet  you  will  take  notice  that  that  is  not  all. 
While  they  preach  a  great  deal,  and  put  an  emphasis 
upon  it,  yet,  after  all,  they  expect  the  main  work  to  be 
done  otherwise.  When  the  preaching  is  over,  they 
have  a  rousing  good  time  in  the  social  meeting,  singing 
and  praying,  and  then  it  is  expected  that  men  will  be 
caught  and  brought  into  the  church. 

You  will  find  that  generally,  in  New  England,  they 
have  run  to  preaching.  Why  ?  Because  they  had 
nothing  else  to  run  to.  The  pulpit  was  made  every- 
thing of,  and  the  whole  economy  of  the  church  was 
barren  outside  of  that.  There  was  very  little  of  sing- 
ing, and  what  there  was  did  not  always  minister  to 
grace.  The  praying  was  sometimes  most  helpful,  and 
sometimes  not  so  much  so  ;  but  after  the  reading  of  the 
Scriptures  (and  that,  in  my  childhood,  was  not  very 
much  indulged  in  in  parish  churches),  the  main  thing 
was  preaching. 

Now,  if  one  goes  into  a  community  where  the  ser- 
mon is  everything,  and  other  things  are  almost  nothing, 
of  course  his  preaching  will  be  very  different  from  what 
it  would  be  were  he  to  go  into  an  Episcopal  or  a  Meth- 
odist Church,  where  there  is  a  large  economy  besides 


THE  PSYCHOLOGICAL  WORKING-ELEMENTS.  109 

preaching,  on  which  the  minister  depends  for  success  in 
his  labors.  Again,  you  may  have  to  build  uj)  a  com- 
munity. Or  you  may  have  to  arouse  them,  —  to  loosen 
up  the  earth,  and,  as  it  were,  take  soil  there,  where  the 
ground  has  been  ploughed  and  worn  out  and  abandoned, 
like  old  Virginia's  soil.  Or  you  may  have  to  take  new 
prairie  soil  and  break  it  up  yourself.  All  these  things 
will  determine  your  style  of  preaching.  So,  then,  when 
you  go  away  from  here  into  your  field  of  labor,  you  will 
find  that  it  is  only  very  little  of  what  you  have  heard 
in  the  seminary  that  you  can  immediately  apply.  You 
must  do  things  according  to  some  principle  of  common- 
sense,  aside  from  what  you  may  have  learned  here.  All 
these  lessons  that  you  are  being  taught  in  the  seminary 
are  of  a  great  deal  more  importance  to  you  than  you 
believe  now.  You  will  think  better  of  your  theological 
training  twenty  years  hence  than  to-day,  perhaps.  But, 
after  all,  mother- wit  and  a  patient  finding  out  of  your 
road  from  day  to  day  are  going  to  teach  you  in  the  last 
instance,  and  they  will  be  your  best  teachers. 

THE  POWER  OF  IMAGINATION. 

Yet,  despite  all  these  necessary  differences,  there  are 
certain  important  elements  that  enter  into  all  ministries. 
And  the  first  element  on  which  your  preaching  will 
largely  depend  for  power  and  success,  you  will  perhaps 
be  surprised  to  learn,  is  Imagination,  which  I  regard 
as  the  most  important  of  all  the  elements  that  go  to 
make  the  preacher.  But  you  must  not  understand  me 
to  mean  the  imagination  as  the  creator  of  fiction,  and 
still  less  as  the  factor  of  embellishment.  The  imagina- 
tion in  its  relations  to  art  and  beauty  is  one  thing ;  and 


110 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


in  its  relations  to  moral  truth  it  is  another  thing,  of 
the  most  substantial  character.  Imagination  of  this 
kind  is  the  true  germ  of  faith ;  it  is  the  power  of  con- 
ceiving as  definite  the  things  which  are  invisible  to 
the  senses,  —  of  giving  them  distinct  shape.  And 
this,  not  merely  in  your  own  thoughts,  but  with  the 
power  of  presenting  the  things  which  experience  cannot 
primarily  teach  to  other  people's  minds,  so  that  they 
shall  be  just  as  obvious  as  though  seen  with  the  bodily 
eye. 

^  Imagination  of  this  kind  is  a  most  vital  element  in 
preaching.  If  we  presented  to  people  things  we  had 
seen,  we  should  have  all  their  bodily  organism  in  our 
"^-^  favor.  My  impression  is,  that  the  fountain  of  strength 
in  every  Christian  ministry  is  the  power  of  the  minister 
himself  to  realize  God  present,  and  to  present  him  to 
the  people.  No  ministry  can  be  long,  various,  rich,  and 
fruitful,  I  think,  except  from  that  root.  We  hear  a 
great  deal  about  the  breadth  of  the  pulpit,  and  about 
the  variety  of  the  pulpit,  and  about  carrying  the  truth 
home  to  men's  hearts.  I  have  said  a  great  deal  to  you 
/about  it,  and  shall  say  more.  I  claim  that  the  pulpit 
has  a  right  and  a  duty  to  discuss  social  questions,  — 
moral  questions  in  politics,  slavery,  war,  peace,  and  the 
intercourse  of  nations.  It  has  a  right  to  discuss  com- 
merce, industry,  political  economy ;  everything  from  the 
roof-tree  to  the  foundation-stone  of  the  household,  and 
\everything  that  is  of  interest  in  the  State.  You  have 
a  duty  to  speak  of  all  these  things.  There  is  not  so 
broad  a  platform  in  the  world  as  the  Christian  pulpit, 
nor  an  air  so  free  as  the  heavenly  air  that  overhangs  it. 
/You  have  a  right  and  a  duty  to  preach  on  all  these 


THE  PSYCHOLOGICAL  WORKING-ELEMENTS.  Ill 

things  ;  but  if  you  make  your  ministry  to  stand  on  them, 
it  will  be  barren.  It  will  be  rather  a  lectureship  than 
a  Christian  ministry.  It  will  be  secular  and  will  be- 
come secularized.  The  real  root  and  secret  of  power, 
after  all,  in  the  pulpit,  is  the  preaching  of  the  invisi^ 
tie  God  to  the  people  as  an  ever-present  God.  The 
preacher,  then,  must  have  the  greatness  of  the  God- 
power  in  his  soul ;  and  when  he  is  himself  inspired 
with  it,  —  and  filled  with  it  so  familiarly  that  always 
and  everywhere  it  is  the  influence  under  which  he 
looks  out  at  man,  at  pleasure,  at  honor,  and  at  all  the 
vicissitudes  of  human  life,  —  still  standing  under  the 
shadow  of  God's  presence,  he  has  the  power  of  God 
with  man  when  he  comes  to  speak  of  the  truths  of  the 
gospel  as  affecting  human  procedure.  This  power  of 
conceiving  of  invisible  things  does  not  only  precede 
in  point  of  time,  but  it  underlies,  and  is  dynamically 
superior  to,  anything  else. 

Now,  imagination  is  indispensable  to  the  formation 
of  any  clear  and  distinct  ideas  of  God  the  Father,  the 
Son,  or  the  Holy  Ghost.  For  myself,  I  am  compelled 
to  say  that  I  must  form  an  ideal  of  God  through  his 
Son,  Jesus  Christ.  Christ  is  indispensable  to  me.  My 
nature  needs  to  fashion  the  thought  of  God,  though  I 
know  him  to  be  a  Spirit,  into  something  that  shall 
nearly  or  remotely  represent  that  which  I  know.  I 
hold  before  my  mind  a  glorified  form,  therefore ;  but, 
after  all  the  glory,  whatever  may  be  the  nimbus  and 
the  effluence  around  about  it,  it  is  to  me  the  form  of  a 
glorified  man.  And  I  therefore  fashion  to  myself,  out 
of  the  spirit,  that  which  has  to  me,  as  it  were,  a  Divine 
presence  and  a  Divine  being,  namely,  a  Divine  man. 


112 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


But  now  come  the  attributal  elements,  the  fashion- 
ing of  the  disposition,  and  not  only  that,  but  a  fashion- 
ing of  the  whole  interior.  I  bring  to  you  some  day 
the  face,  in  miniature,  of  one  very  beautiful.  You 
look  upon  it,  and  say,  "  Who  is  that  ? "  I  describe  the 
person  and  give  you  the  name.  You  say,  "It  is  a 
beautiful  face."  But  you  do  not,  after  looking  at  it, 
feel  that  you  are  acquainted  with  the  person.  Now  I 
will  take  you  home  with  me  and  introduce  you  to  the 
friend  whose  name  belongs  to  this  picture ;  but  still 
you  would  not  feel  that  you  knew  her.  You  salute 
her  morning  and  evening,  converse  with  her,  and  take 
part  in  the  social  festivities.  You  admire  her  tact,  her 
delicacy,  and  her  beauty.  You  say  the  acquaintance 
opens  well.  She  seems  to  you  very  lady-like  and  at- 
tractive. On  the  Sabbath  day  the  Bible-class  assembles, 
and  you  go  there  with  your  friend.  In  the  recitations 
and  the  low-toned  conversations  she  shows  great  knowl- 
edge and  moral  feeling,  a  bright  intellect,  and  marvel- 
lous discrimination.  But,  still,  you  do  r  ot  feel  that  you 
know  her.  Then  you  fall  sick,  and  experience  that 
delicious  interval  just  after  a  severe  illness,  which  one 
sometimes  has,  —  the  coming  dawn  after  a  long  night, 
heralding  the  morning  of  returning  health.  In  that 
time  the  hours  are  to  be  filled  up,  and  she  becomes  a 
ministering  angel  unto  you.  She  is  full  of  resources 
for  your  comfort.  You  notice  the  wisdom  of  lier 
management,  the  power  she  has  to  stimulate  thought, 
to  play  with  the  imagination,  and  to  cheer  the  heart. 
I  am  not  now  speaking  of  one  to  whom  you  are  to  be 
affianced.  It  is  not  for  you  ;  only  you  are  making  the 
acquaintance  of  one  whose  portrait  you  had  seen,  but 


THE  PSYCHOLOGICAL  WORKING-ELEMENTS.  113 


nothing  more.  And  by  thus  living  in  communion  with 
you,  she  has  affected  you,  little  by  little,  in  such  a 
manner  that  it  has  been  brought  home  to  you ;  and  you 
say,  "  I  have  found  a  friend  ! "  W ell,  who  was  she  ? 
Did  you  hiow  her  when  you  first  saw  her  portrait  ? 

Do  you  know  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ  when  you 
merely  see  his  portrait,  as  it  were,  in  the  Evangelists  ? , 
Do  you  know  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ  when  you  simply 
range  through  his  words  of  wisdom,  and  take  them, 
germ-words  as  they  are,  with  all  the  fullness  that  you 
can  ?  No,  not  until  you  have  been  intimate  with  him, 
and  have  had  your  hearts  lifted  up  in  their  noblest 
elements  into  that  serener  air  through  which  God  only 
communicates.  It  is  not  until  you  have  been  in  this 
atmosphere,  not  only  on  the  Lord's  day,  but  on  the  in- 
tervening days.  It  is  not  until,  by  the  Holy  Spirit,  you 
have  been  made  sensitive  in  every  part,  and  the  Lord 
Jesus  Christ  becomes  chief  among  ten  thousand  and 
altogether  lovely.  It  is  not  until  you  have  the  power 
to  transfuse  Jesus  Christ  into  your  whole  life  that  you 
know  him,  —  until  there  is  something  in  the  morning 
dawn  that  brings  you  the  thought  of  him,  in  the  hush 
of  the  evening,  at  noon-time,  in  the  budding  and 
springing  of  the  trees,  in  the  singing  of  the  birds, 
when  you  sit  listless  on  the  grass  in  the  summer,  in 
the  retreats  of  man,  in  the  cities  and  towns,  with  the 
fertile  power  of  suggestion  and  association  by  which 
you  feel  that  the  earth  is  the  Lord's  and  the  fullness 
thereof.  When  you  know  him  in  all  the  boundless 
domain  of  nature,  everything  speaks  to  you  of  your 
Lord  Jesus  Christ.  Just  so,  in  your  father's  house, 
every  room  speaks  to  you  of  your  mother  who  is  gone, 

H 


114 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHINCt. 


—  every  stair  in  tlie  staircase,  every  sound  of  the  bell, 
every  tick  of  the  clock,  and  everything  under  the  roof, 
bring  back  to  you  her  memory.  It  is  not  until  Jesus 
Christ  fills  the  soul  full,  and, he  is  yours,  born  into  you, 
made  familiar,  rich,  and  various,  touching  something  in 
every  part  of  your  nature,  and  spreading  out  over  all 
the  things  around  about  you,  that  you  have  the  imagi- 
nation to  conceive  of  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  and  you 
have  a  living  conception  of  him,  which  you  can  teach 
and  present  to  others. 

But  this  imagination  is  required  still  more  vividly 
in  the  second  step,  namely,  the  power  to  throw  out  your 
conceptions  before  others,  and  such  a  preaching  of  the 
Lord  Jesus  Clirist  as  shall  bring  him  home  to  your 
hearers.  How  will  you  undertake  to  do  this  ?  You 
will  have  little  children  to  deal  with.  You  will  have 
persons  of  great  practical  sense,  but  of  very  little 
imagination,  if  any.  You  will  have  persons  of  a  way- 
ward, coarse  temperament,  and  again  others  of  a  fine, 
sensitive  nature.  You  will  have  those  who  take  moral 
impressions  with  extreme  facility,  and  who  understand 
analogies  and  illustrations  ;  and  you  will  have  others 
who  understand  nothing  of  this  kind.  These  persons 
you  must  imbue  with  a  sense  of  Christ's  presence  with 
^  them.  This  is  the  prime  question  in  your  ministerial 
^  life,  —  how  to  bring  Jesus  Christ  home  to  men,  so  that 
he  shall  be  to  them  what  he  is  to  you.  You  may  pre- 
sent Christ  to  them  historically,  and  far  be  it  from  me 
to  say  that  you  must  not  put  great  emphasis  upon  the 
historical  study  of  Christ  ;  but  you  must  remember 
that  Christ,  as  he  was  eighteen  hundred  years  ago,  in- 
terpreted by  the  letter,  is  not  a  living  Christ.    It  is  an 


THE  PSYCHOLOGICAL  WORKING -ELEMENTS.  115 

liistorical  picture,  but  it  is  not  a  live  Christ.  Thence 
must  you  get  your  materials,  out  of  which  to  make  the 
living  faith.  Many  a  minister  believes  that  after  he 
has  been  delivering  a  series  of  sermons  on  the  life  and 
times  of  Christ,  he  has  been  preaching  Christ.  He  has 
been  merely  preaching  about  him,  not  preaching  him. 
There  is  many  a  minister  who  has  been  preaching  the 
philosophy  of  Christ ;  that  is,  a  view  of  Christ  in  which, 
with  infinite  refinements  and  cultured  arguments,  he 
makes  him  one  of  the  persons  in  the  Trinity,  —  who  is 
jealous  for  his  service,  jealous  for  his  honor,  exactly 
discriminating  where  the  line  of  infinity  comes  down 
and  touches  the  line  of  finity,  and  pugnacious  all  along 
that  line,  —  and  then  thinks  that  he  has  been  preaching 
Christ.  Some  ministers  think  that  they  have  been 
preaching  Christ  when^  they  have  been  discoursing 
about  the  relations  of  Christ  to  the  law,  the  nature  of 
his  sufferings,  how  it  was  necessary  that  he.  should 
suffer,  what  the  effect  of  his  suffering  was  upon  the 
universe,  and  what  was  the  nature  of  the  effect  of  his 
suffering  upon  Divine  law,  and  on  the  Divine  sense  of 
justice.  They  work  out  of  the  life  and  times  of  Christ, 
and  out  of  his  sufferings  and  death,  a  theory  of  Atone- 
ment, or,  as  it  is  called,  a  Plan  of  Salvation,"  and 
present  that  to  men,  and  then  they  think  they  have 
presented  Christ. 

Now  I  am  not  saying  that  you  should  not  discuss 
such  themes,  but  only  that  you  should  not  suppose 
m  so  doing  you  have  been  preaching  Christ.  You 
cannot  do  it  in  that  way.  To  preach  Christ  is  to  make 
such  a  presentation  of  him  as  shall  fill  those  who  hear 
you.    They  must  be  made  to  conceive  it  in  themselves, 


116 


LECTUKES  ON  PREACHING. 


and  he  must  be  to  them  a  live  Saviour,  as  he  is  to  you. 
One  of  the  noblest  expressions  of  Paul  is  where  he 
exclaims,  "  Christ  who  died,  yea,  rather,  who  livethj'  as 
if  he  bounded  back  from  the  thought  of  speaking  about 
Christ  as  dead.  He  is  one  who  liveth  again  and 
reign eth  in  the  heavens  over  all  the  earth. 

There  is  danger  of  a  mistake  being  made  here.  You 
might  ask  me  if  you  ought  not  to  preach  atonement. 
Yes.  Ought  you  not,  also,  to  preach  the  nature,  suffer- 
ings, and  death  of  Christ  ?  Yes,  provided  you  will  not 
suppose  you  understand  more  than  you  really  do  on 
these  subjects.  There  is  much  in  that  direction  that 
may  contribute  to  instruction ;  but  it  seems  to  me  that 
what  you  need,  what  I  need,  and  what  the  community 
needs,  is  that,  in  a  world  full  of  penalty,  where  aches, 
pains,  tears,  sighs,  and  groans  bear  witness  to  Divine 
justice,  —  where,  from  the  beginning,  groanings  and  tra- 
vailings  have  testified  that  God  is  an  avenger,  —  there 
shall  be  brought  out  from  this  discouraging  background 
the  truth  of  the  gospel,  that  God  loves  mankind,  and 
would  not  that  they  die.  He  is  the  God  that  shall  wipe 
away  the  tears  from  every  eye.  He  is  the  God  that 
shall  put  out  with  the  brightness  of  his  face  the  light 
of  the  sun  and  of  the  moon.  He  shall  put  his  arm 
around  about  men,  and  comfort  them  as  a  mother 
her  child.  That  is  the  love  of  God  in  Christ  Jesus. 
With  this  we  would  stimulate  men  when  they  are 
sluggish,  would  develop  their  better  natures,  give 
them  hope  in  a  future  life,  cheer  them  onward  in  the 
path  of  duty,  and  give  them  confidence  in  immortality 
and  eternity ;  for  in  God  we  live  and  move,  and  have 
our  being. 


THE  PSYCHOLOGICAL  WORKING-ELEMENTS.  117 


The  imagination,  then,  is  that  power  of  the  mind  by^ 
which  it  conceives  of  invisible  things,  and  is  able  to' 
present  them  as  though  they  were  visible  to  others. 
That  fs  one  of  its  most  transcendent  offices.  It  is  the 
quality  which  of  necessity  must  belong  to  the  ministryy 
The  functions  of  the  preacher  require  it.  In  godly 
families  it  was,  formerly,  the  habit  to  discourage  the 
imagination,  or  to  use  it  only  occasionally.  They  mis- 
conceived its  glorious  functions.  It  is,  I  repeat,  the 
very  marrow  of  faith,  or  that  power  by  which  w^e  see 
the  invisible  and  make  others  see  it.  It  is  the  power 
to  bring  from  the  depths  the  things  that  are  hidden 
from  the  bodily  eye.  A  ministry  enriched  by  this  noble 
faculty  will  not  and  cannot  wear  out,  and  the  preacher's 
people  will  never  be  tired  of  listening  to  him.  Did 
you  ever  hear  anybody  say  that  spring  has  been  worn 
out  ?  It  has  been  coming  for  thousands  of  years,  and 
it  is  just  as  sweet,  just  as  welcome,  and  just  as  new,  as 
if  the  birds  sang  for  the  first  time ;  and  so  it  will  be 
for  a  thousand  years  to  come.  These  great  processes 
of  nature  that  are  continuall}^  recurring  cannot  weary 
us.  But  discussions  of  the  systems  of  theology  will. 
Men  get  accustomed  to  repetitions  of  the  same  thoughts ; 
but  there  is  something  in  the  love  of  God  and  Jesus 
Christ,  and  in  the  application  of  these  things  to  the 
human  soul,  that  will  give  an  ever-varying  freshness  to 
a  ministry  which  occupies  itself  with  the  contemplation 
and  teaching  of  this  law  of  love,  and  applying  the 
knowledge  to  all  the  varying  wants  and  shifting  phases 
of  the  congregation.  Even  though  you  are  forty  years 
in  one  parish,  you  will  never  have  finished  your  preach- 
ing, and  you  will  not  tire  your  people. 


LECTUKES  ON  PREACHING. 
EMOTION. 


The  next  element  that  I  shall  mention  is  the  power 
of  Feeling.  There  is  a  great  deal  of  natural  emotion 
in  New-Engianders,  but  much  of  it  is  suppressed.  It 
is  not  the  habit  of  people  in  our  Eastern  States  to 
show  feeling  nearly  as  much  as  in  the  South,  nor  as 
much  as  in  the  West.  The  New  Testament,  however, 
is  Oriental,  and  the  Orientals  always  had,  and  showed, 
a  great  deal  of  emotion.  The  style  of  the  Apostles' 
procedure  shows  that  they  had  a  great  deal  of  fervency, 
which  is  only  another  term  for  emotional  outplay. 

If  a  man  undertake  to  minister  to  the  wants  of  his 
congregation  purely  by  the  power  of  feeling,  without 
adequate  force  in  the  intellect,  there  are  valid  objec- 
tions to  that ;  but  every  man  who  means  to  be  in 
affinity  with  his  congregation  must  have  feeling.  It 
cannot  be  lielped.  A  minister  without  feeling  is  no 
better  than  a  book.  You  might  just  as  well  put  a 
book,  printed  in  large  type,  on  the  desk  where  all  could 
read  it,  and  have  a  man  turn  over  the  leaves  as  you 
read,  as  to  have  a  man  stand  up,  and  clearly  and  coldly 
recite  the  precise  truth  through  which  he  has  gone  by 
a  logical  course  of  reasoning.  It  has  to  melt  some- 
where. Somewhere  there  must  be  that  power  by  which 
the  man  speaking  and  the  men  hearing  are  unified ; 
and  that  is  the  power  of  emotion. 

It  will  vary  indefinitely  in  different  persons.  Som^ 
will  have  much  emotion,  and  some  but  very  little.  It 
is  a  thing  to  be  striven  for.  Where  there  is  relatively 
a  deficiency,  men  can  educate  themselves  and  acquire 
this  power. 


THE  PSYCHOLOGICAL  WORKING-ELEMENTS.  119 

Now  one  of  the  great  hindrances  to  the  exhibition 
of  true  Christian  feeling  in  the  pulpit  is  tliat  which  I 
hear  called  the  dignity  of  the  pulpit."  Men  have 
been  afraid  to  lay  that  aside,  and  bring  themselves 
under  the  conditions  necessary  for  the  display  of  emo- 
tion. Now  and  then  they  will  have  a  sublime,  religious 
tone  of  feeling  at  a  revival.  But,  after  all,  there  is  a 
vast  amount  of  feeling  playing  in  every  man's  mind, 
which  is  a  very  able  element  in  preaching.  It  may  be 
intense,  earnest,  pathetic,  or  cheerful,  mirthful,  and 
gratifying,  and  is  the  result  of  love  to  God  and  God's 
creatures.  If  a  man  desires  to  preach  with  power,  he 
must  have  this  element  coming  and  going  between  him 
and  his  hearers ;  he  must  believe  what  he  is  saying,  and 
what  he  says  must  be  out  of  himself,*  and  not  out  of  his 
manuscript  merely.  If  a  man  cannot  be  free  to  speak 
as  he  feels,  but  is  thinking  all  the  time  about  the 
sacredness  of  the  place,  it  will  shut  him  up.  He  will 
grow  critical.  I  think  the  best  rule  for  a  man  in 
society  —  and  it  is  good  for  the  pulpit  too  —  is  to  have 
right  aims,  do  the  best  things  by  the  best  means  you 
can  find,  and  then  let  yourself  alone.  Do  not  be  a  spy 
on  yourself.  A  man  who  goes  down  the  street  thinking 
of  himself  all  the  time,  with  critical  analysis,  whether 
he  is  doing  this,  that,  or  the  other  thing,  —  turning 
himself  over  as  if  he  were  a  goose  on  a  spit  before  a 
fire,  and  basting  himself  with  good  resolutions,  —  is 
simply  belittling  himself.  This  course  is  bad  also  in 
the  closet. 

There  is  a  large  knowledge  of  one's  self  that  every 
man  should  have.  But  a  constant  study  of  one's  own 
morbid  anatomy  is  very  discouraging  and  harmful.    It . 


120 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


is  the  power  of  being  free  and  independent  in  their 
opinions  that  men  want,  and  they  must  get  it  in  some 
way  or  other.  Having  right  aims,  be  manly  ;  know  that 
you  mean  right,  that  you  will  do  right  by  the  right 
way ;  then  let  go,  and  do  not  be  thinking  of  yourself, 
if  you  can  help  it,  from  sunrise  to  sunset.  A  man 
must  go  into  the  pulpit  with  this  spirit.  Let  him 
know  what  he  w^ants,  and  let  him  be  able  to  say,  "  God 
knows  what  sends  me  here  to-day."  Let  his  heart  be 
right  with  God.  When  he  is  working  for  men  and 
among  them,  if  it  is  best  for  him  to  write,  let  him 
write ;  but  it  is  better,  for  the  most  successful  work, 
that  he  should  not  stand  up  and  recite  merely.  You 
know  what  you  can  do  only  Avhen  the  sacred  fire  is 
upon  you.  You  have  no  time  then  for  analyzing  the 
effect  upon  yourself  in  any  minute  way. 

Many  men  go  into  the  pulpit  fresh  from  the  mirror, 
cravatted  and  in  perfect  toilet,  with  the  sanctity  of  the 
place  weighing  upon  them,  and  everything  complete  and 
proper.  They  know  if  there  is  the  slightest  aberration ; 
and  under  all  this  there  is  a  profound  self-conscious- 
ness. They  are  shocked  if  any  man,  in  such  a  place, 
does  that  which  creates  the  slightest  discord  with  their 
awful  solemnity,  or  breaks  the  sanctity  of  the  pulpit. 
Now,  according  to  my  own  principles,  when  a  man  is  a 
» messenger  of  God,  and  knows  that  men  are  in  danger, 
and  believes  that  he  is  sent  to  rescue  them,  he  must  be 
lost  in  the  enthusiasm  of  that  work.  Do  you  suppose 
he  can  stop  his  feelings  from  being  manifested  by  any 
system  of  pulpit  routine  ?  If  he  is  naturally  correct 
and  makes  no  mistakes,  so  much  the  better,  for  I  do 
not  think  that  mistakes  are  desirable;  but  there  may 


THE  PSYCHOLOGICAL  WORKING-ELEMENTS. 


121 


be  a  "propriety"  in  his  preaching  that  will  damn  half 
his  congregation,  or  there  may  occasionally  be  almost 
an  "impropriety"  that  v/ill  Imrt  nobody,  and,  accom- 
panied with  the  right  manner,  will  save  multitudes  of 
men.  If  it  is  for  anything,  it  is  to  save  men  that  you 
are  going  into  the  ministry.  If  you  do  not  go  for  that, 
you  would  better  stay  out. 

Men  often  think  that  excitements  are  dangerous. 
Yes ;  everything  is  dangerous  in  this  world.  From  the 
time  that  a  man  is  born  into  the  world  until  he  leaves 
it,  it  is  always  possible  that  there  might  be  danger 
coupled  with  everything  he  does.  There  is  a  danger 
that  your  feeling  may  be  too  boisterous,  or  of  too  coarse 
a  nature,  or  that  it  will  not  be  adapted  to  the  wants  of 
the  conoTC^^ation  ;  all  these  things  are  to  be  taken  into 
consideration.  But  there  is  no  danger  from  excitemenT^ 
that  is  half  so  fearful  as  the  danger  of  not  feeling  and. 
not  caring.  The  want  of  feeling  is  a  hundred  times 
more  dangerous  than  any  excitement  that  you  can  bring  { 
to  bear  upon  a  community. 

ENTHUSIASM.  ^ 

There  is  another  force  which  I  desire  to  speak  of,  and 
that  is  the  element  of  Enthusiasm.  This  is  not  feelino^, 
because  pure  emotion  may  or  may  not  be  accompanied 
by  enthusiasm.  There  is  in  all  enthusiasm  a  certain 
outburst  and  glow.  You  may  have  enthusiasm  and 
feeling  ;  or,  it  may  be,  enthusiasm  and  imagination  ;  or, 
it  may  be,  enthusiasm  and  reason.  In  almost  all  com-" 
munities  enthusiasm  stands  before  everything  else  in  [ 
moving  popular  assemblies.  A  preacher  who  is  enthu- 
siastic in  everything  he  does,  in  all  that  he  believes^ 

6 


122 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


and  in  all  the  movements  of  his  ministry,  will  generally 
carry  the  people  with  him.  He  may  do  this  without 
enthusiasm,  but  it  will  be  a  slow  process,  and  the  work 
will  be  much  more  laborious.  If  you  have  the  power 
/ [)f  speech  and  the  skill  of  presenting  the  truth,  and 
/   are  enthusiastic,  the  people  will  become  enthusiastic.  ♦ 

People  will  take  your  views,  because  your  enthusiasm 
V  has  inoculated  them.  Very  often  you  will  see  a  man 
Vof  great  learning  go  into  a  community  and  accomplish 
nothing  at  all ;  and  a  whipster  will  go  after  him  with 
not  as  much  in  his  whole  body  as  his  predecessor  had 
in  his  little  finger,  yet  he  will  revolutionize  everytliing. 
You  may  say  that  a  community  aroused  by  enthu- 
siasm alone  will  just  as  quickly  relapse  into  their 
former  state.  Yes ;  but  I  do  not  counsel  enthusiasm 
alone.  The  mistake  is  in  permitting  any  such  relapse. 
It  is  the  same  as  though  you  ploughed  a  field  and  then 
left  it  for  the  rain  to  level  again.  You  must  not  only 
plough  it,  but  sow  seed,  harrow,  and  till  it.  Yet  it  is 
essential  that  the  field  should  be  ploughed.  So  it  is 
with  a  community.  Mere  enthusiasm  will  do  nothing 
permanent ;  but  its  work  must  be  followed  up  by  con- 
tinual and  fervent  preaching,  and  by  indoctrination  of 
the  truths  of  the  gospel.  I  repeat,  therefore,  that 
enthusiasm  is  an  indispensable  element  in  a  minister's 
work  among  men,  to  bring  them  to  a  knowledge  of  the 
Lord  Jesus  Christ. 

FAITH. 

The  other  element  that  I  wish  to  discuss  is  Faith,  in 
the  sense  of  belief.    I  do  not  mean  now  by  faith  what^^ 
I  did  in  the  other  instance,  namely,  the  realization  of 


THE  PSYCHOLOGICAL  WORKING-ELEMENTS. 


123 


the  invisible,  but  the  believing  spirit  which  you  must 
have,  —  tlie  conviction  of  what  you  teach.  A  man 
who  does  not  believe  what  he  is  preaching  will  very 
seldom  make  his  people  believe  it ;  and,  therefore,  I  say 
if  your  minds  are  much  in  doubt  in  respect  to  the 
grounds  or  the  great  truths  of  Christianity,  and  if  you 
are  thinking  about  that  all  the  time,  you  will  never  be 
preachers.  You  must  get  rid  of  that  feeling.  You  can 
get  over  it  by  bringing  yourselves  to  deal  with  the* 
wants  of  men,  and  accustoming  yourselves  to  practical 
life.  There  is  no  study  like  mixing  with  men,  and 
helping  them.  There  is  hothing  that  will  make  you 
believe  in  God  so  much  as  trying  to  be  like  God  your- 
selves to  your  fellow-men,  nor  anything  that  will  bring 
Christ  so  near  to  you  as  trying  to  do  what  Christ  did, 
by  giving  up  your  will  for  your  people,  and  conforming 
yourself  to  their  dispositions,  and  presenting  to  them 
everything  you  have  realized  in  respect  to  the  great 
doctrines  of  Christianity.  I  do  not  understand  how 
men  can  preach  these  doctrines  who  are  occupied  all 
the  week  in  raising  questions  of  doubt.  There  is 
abroad  a  habit  of  mind  which  is  .called constructive 
criticism  "  by  philosophers,  w^hich  is  now  prevalent  in 
Germany,  and  somewhat  so  in  England,  and  is  even 
throwing  its  shadow  upon  our  own  land,  and  exciting 
men's  minds.  A  man  under  that  influence  is,  as  it 
were,  congealed,  and  loses  his  electrical  power,  by  which 
only  a  man  preaches  with  any  effect.  There  was  some- 
thing almost  omnipotent  and  altogether  triumphant  in 
the  expression,  ''I  know  in  w^hom  I  believe."  A  man 
who  is  the  very  embodiment  of  conviction,  and  who 
pours  it  out  upon  people  so  that  they  can  see  it  and 


124 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


feel  it,  can  preach.  He  can  make  men  believe  things 
that  are  true,  and  even  those  that  are  not  true,  such  as 
that  ordinances  are  indispensable  which  are  not  indis- 
pensable. He  can  do  almost  everything  with  people, 
for  he  really  believes  his  own  doctrine.  See  Eoman 
Catholic  priests  go  into  a  community,  —  and  there  are 
many  of  them  that  might  be  our  exemplars  in  piety 
and  self-denial,  —  and  with  that  intense  faith  and  zeal 
which  have  made  them  martyrs  among  savages,  see 
them  labor  among  the  people,  and  lead  them  into  the 
fold  of  the  Eoman  Church.  That  is  largely  the  result 
of  the  Faith-power. 

If  you  are  going  to  preach,  do  not  take  things  about 
which  you  are  in  doubt  to  lay  before  your  people.  Do 
not  prove  things  too  much.    A  man  who  goes  into  his 
J  pulpit  every  Sunday  to  prove  things  gives  occasion  for 
^  people  to  say,  "  Well,  that  is  not  half  so  certain  as  I 
thought  it  was."    You  will,  by  this  course,  raise  up  a 
generation  of  chronic  doubters,  and  will  keep  them  so 
by  a  little  drilling  in  the  nice  refinement  of  doctrinal 
criticism.   You  can  drive  back  from  the  heart  the  great 
surges  of  faith  with  that  kind  of  specious  argument, 
and  even  the  true  witness  of  the  Spirit  of  God  in  men 
may  be  killed  in  your  congregation  by  such  doubting 
logic.    Do  not  employ  arguments  any  more  than  is 
T  necessary,  and  then  only  for  the  sake  of  answering 
/    objections  and  killing  the  enemies  of  the  truth  ;  but  in 
f    so  far  as  truth  itself  is  concerned,  preach  it  to  the  con- 
[    sciousness  of  men.    If  you  have  not  spoiled  your  peo- 
ple, you  have  them  on  your  side  already.   The  Word  of 
God  and  the  laws  of  truth  are  all  conformable  to  rea- 
son and  to  the  course  of  things  that  now  are ;  and, 


THE  PSYCHOLOGICAL  WORKING-ELEMENTS.  125 


certainly,  everything  that  is  required  in  a  Christian 
life  —  repentance  for  sin  and  turning  from  it,  the  taking 
hold  of  a  higher  manhood,  the  nobility  and  disinterest- 
edness of  man  —  goes  with  God's  Word  and  laws  natu- 
rally. Assume  your  position,  therefore  ;  and  if  a  man 
says  to  you,  "  How  is  it  you  are  so  successful  while 
using  so  little  argument  ?  "  tell  him  that  is  the  very 
reason  of  your  success.  Take  things  for  granted,  and 
men  w^ill  not  think  to  dispute  them,  but  will  admit  ^ 
them,  and  go  on  with  you  and  become  better  men  than 
if  they  had  been  treated  to  a  logical  process  of  argu- 
ment, which  aroused  in  them  an  argumentative  spirit 
of  doubt  and  opposition. 


Eemember,  then.  Imagination,  Emotion,  Enthusiasm, 
and  Conviction  are  the  four  foundation-stones  of  an./ 
effective  and  successful  ministry.  / 


Q.  Suppose  a  man  does  not  have  the  enthusiasm  of  which  you 
have  spoken,  wiiat  is  he  to  do  ? 

Mr.  Beecher.  —  Do  the  best  he  can,  and  stop.  I 
think  it  would  be  a  very  wholesome  thing  in  a  man's 
parish  life,  if  once  in  a  while,  upon  finding  that  he  was 
not  making  much  of  a  sermon,  he  should  frankly  con- 
fess it,  and  say,  "  Brethren,  we  will  sing." 

Q.  Suppose  a  man  tries  to  work  himself  up  to  a  feehng  of 
enthusiasm  by  action  and  increased  emphasis,  can  he  be  success- 


Mr.  Beecher.  —  In  regard  to  that,  I  will  mention  a 
circumstance  that  occurred  to  my  father.  I  recollect 
his  coming  home  in  Boston  one  Sunday,  when  I  was 


QUESTIONS  AND  ANSWERS. 


ful? 


126 


LECTUKES  ON  PREACHING. 


quite  a  small  boy,  saying  how  glad  he  was  to  get  home, 
away  from  the  church ;  and  he  added,  It  seems  to  me 
I  never  made  a  worse  sermon  than  I  did  this  morning." 
1/  "  Why,  father/'  said  I,  I  never  heard  you  preach  so 
loud  in  all  my  life."  "  That  is  the  way,"  said  he,  I 
always  holloa  wlien  I  have  n't  anything  to  say ! " 

But  how  far  a  man  may  assume  the  language  of 
feeling  —  and  he  may  sometimes,  in  order  to  its  pro- 
duction—  is  a  fair  question,  though  one  I  do  not  now 
wish  to  discuss.  There  is  some  difference  in  the  ques- 
tions put  by  gray  hairs  and  those  put  by  young  men,  I 
notice.  [The  questioner  was  an  elderly  man.]  I  am 
sure  of  one  thing,  and  that  is,  where  a  man  is  naturally 
cold  he  is  not  as  well  adapted  to  the  office  of  preaching 
as  an  enthusiastic  man.  I  would  say  to  such  a  man, 
"Put  yourself  in  that  situation  in  which  sympathy 
naturally  flows ;  then  provide  a  mold  for  it,  and  it  will 
fit  the  mould  first  or  last."  It  is  just  like  the  culti- 
vation of  right  feeling  in  any  direction.  One  of  my 
parishioners  will  say  to  me,  I  have  no  benevolence, 
but  you  preach  that  I  ought  to  give,  —  what  shall  I 
do  ? "  I  say  to  him,  Give,  as  a  matter  of  duty,  until 
you  feel  a  pleasure  in  doing  it,  and  the  right  feeling 
will  come  of  itself"  So,  in  addressing  a  congregation, 
a  man  may  use  the  language  of  a  feeling  for  the  sake 
of  getting  and  propagating  the  feeling.  Indeed,  when 
it  comes  to  preaching,  I  think  it  would  be  a  great  deal 
better  to  act  as  though  you  had  the  feeling,  even  if  you 
had  not,  for  its  effect  in  carrying  your  audience  whither 
you  wish  to  carry  them. 

Q.  Do  you  approve  of  the  appointment  of  professional  re- 
vivalists ? 


THE  PSYCHOLOGICAL  WORKING-ELEMENTS.  127 

Mr.  Beecher.  —  Yes,  if  I  employ  them.  If  they 
use  me,  I  do  not  like  it.  The  term  professional 
re\dvalist "  is  a  fortunate  one.  I  have  known  a  great 
many  of  these  persons,  and  a  great  many  that  did  not 
do  much  good.  Others  I  have  known  who  have  done 
a  great  deal  of  good.  I  do  not  see  why,  if  a  man  has 
received  from  God  the  gifts  of  arousing  people,  and 
bringing  them  to  see  and  acknowledge  the  great  moral 
truths  of  Christianity,  he  should  not  be  employed  as  a 
revivalist,  under  judicious  administration.  He  should 
be  employed  by  others,  always,  so  as  to  work  into  the 
hands  of  the  pastors,  so  as  to  unite  the  church,  and  not 
to  divide  it.  There  are  difficulties  in  the  "  evangelist 
system,"  but  there  are  benefits  in  it  also,  and  in  many 
cases,  and  in  many  parts  of  the  country,  it  would  seem 
almost  indispensable  to  the  growth  of  the  churches. 
In  churches  that  maintain  a  regular  organization,  and 
are  alive  and  active,  I  do  not  see  the  need  of  profes- 
sional revivalists ;  but  where  they  are  run  down,  and 
in  scattered  neighborhoods,  I  would  certainly  advise 
the  use  of  such  instrumentalities. 


VI. 


EHETOEICAL  DEILL  AND  GENEEAL 
TEAINING. 

February  21,  1872. 

HEEE  is,  in  certain  quarters,  a  prejudice 
existing  against  personal  training  for 
preaching,  in  so  far  as  it  is  affected  by 
posture,  gestures,  and  the  like.  There  is 
a  feeling  abroad  in  regard  to  it,  as  though  it  would 
make  a  dramatic  art  out  of  that  which  should  be  a 
sacred  inspiration.  Men  exclaim,  "Think  of  Paul 
taking  lessons  in  posturing  and  gesticulation,  or  of  St. 
John  considering  beforehand  about  his  robes  and  the 
various  positions  that  he  should  assume  ! They  say, 
"  Let  a  man  who  is  called  of  God  go  into  his  closet,  if 
he  would  prepare ;  let  him  be  filled  with  his  subject 
and  with  the  Holy  Ghost,  and  he  need  not  think  of 
anything  else." 

But  suppose  a  man  should  stutter,  and  you  should 
tell  him  to  go  into  his  closet  and  be  filled  with  the 
Holy  Ghost,  would  it  cure  his  stuttering  ?  Suppose  a 
clergyman  is  a  great,  awkward,  sprawling  fellow,  do  you 
suppose  he  can  pray  himself  into  physical  grace  ?  You 
do  not  think  that  the  call  of  the  Divine  Spirit  is  a 


RHETORICAL  DRILL  AND  GENERAL  TRAINING.  129 


substitute  for  study  and  for  intellectual  preparation. 
You  know  that  a  man  needs  academical  or  professional 
education  in  order  to  preach  his  best.  But  the  same 
considerations  that  make  it  wise  for  you  to  pass  through 
a  liberal  education,  make  it  also  wise  for  you  to  pass 
through  a  liberal  drill  and  training  in  all  that  pertains 
to  oratory. 

THE  VOICE. 

It  is,  however,  a  matter  of  very  great  importance 
what  end  you  seek  by  such  training.  If  a  man  is 
attempting  to  make  himself  simply  a  great  orator,  if 
his  thought  of  preaching  is  how  to  present  the  most 
admirable  "presence  before  the  people,  and  how  to  have 
tones  that  shall  be  most  ravishing  and  melting,  and 
if  he  consider  the  gesture  that  is  appropriate  to  this 
and  that  sentence,  —  in  short,  if  he  studies  as  an  actor 
studies,  and  as  an  actor  properly  studies,  too,  —  he  will 
make  a  great  mistake ;  for  what  are  the  actor's  ends 
are  but  the  preacher's  means.  On  the  other  hand,  as  a 
man's  voice  is  that  instrument  by  which  the  preacher 
has  to  perform  his  whole  work,  its  efficiency  is  well 
worthy  of  study.  For  instance,  the  voice  must  be 
elastic,  so  that  it  can  be  used  for  long  periods  of  time 
without  fatigue ;  and  the  habitual  speaker  should  learn 
to  derive  from  it  the  power  of  unconscious  force. 
There  is  just  as  much  reason  for  a  preliminary  system- 
atic and  scientific  drill  of  the  voice  as  there  is  for  the 
training  of  the  muscles  of  the  body  for  any  athletic 
exercise.  A  man  often  has,  when  he  begins  to  preach,"^ 
a  low  and  feeble  voice ,  each  one  of  his  sentences 
seems  like  a  poor  scared  mouse  running  for  its  hole, 

6*  I  ' 


130 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHINC^. 


and  everybody  sympathizes  with  the  man  as  he  is 
hurrying  through  his  discourse  in  this  way,  rattling  one 
word  into  the  other.  A  little  judicious  drill  would 
have  helped  him  out  of  that.  If  his  attention  can  be 
called  to  it  before  he  begins  his  ministry,  is  it  not 
worth  his  while  to  form  a  better  liahit  1  A  great  many 
men  commence  preaching  under  a  nervous  excitement. 
They  very  speedily  rise  to  a  sharp  and  hard  monotone ; 
and  then  they  go  on  through  their  whole  sermon  as 
fast  as  they  can,  never  letting  their  voices  go  above  or 
below  their  false  pitch,  but  always  sticking  to  that, 
until  everybody  gets  tired  out,  and  they  among  the 
rest. 

VARIOUS  VOCAL  ELEMENTS. 

If  a  man  can  be  taught  in  the  beginning  of  his 
ministry  something  about  suppleness  of  voice  and  the 
method  of  using  it,  it  is  very  much  to  his  advantage. 
For  example,  I  have  known  scores  of  preachers  who 
had  not  the  slightest  knowledge  of  the  explosive  tones 
of  the  voice.  Now  and  then  a  man  falls  into  it  by 
nature,"  as  it  is  said  ;  that  is,  he  stumbles  into  it  acci- 
dentally. But  the  acquired  power  of  raising  the  voice 
at  will  in  its  ordinary  range,  then  explosively,  and 
again  in  its  higher  keys,  ^nd  the  knowledge  of  its 
possibilities  under  these  different  phases,  will  be  very 
helpful.  It  will  help  the  preacher  to  spare  both  him- 
self and  his  people.  It  will  help  him  to  accomplish 
results  almost  unconsciously,  when  it  has  become  a 
habit,  that  could  not  be  gained  in  any  other  way. 

There  are  a  great  many  effects  in  public  speaking 
that  you  must  fall  into  the  conversational  tone  to  make. 


RHETORICAL  DRILL  AND  GENERAL  TRAINING.  131 

Every  man  ought  to  know  the  charm  there  is  in  that 
tone,  and  especially  when  using  the  vernacular  or 
idiomatic  English  phrases.  ■  I  have  known  a  great 
many  most  admirable  preachers  who  lost  almost  all 
real  sympathetic  hold  upon  their  congregations  be- 
cause they  were  too  literary,  too  periphrastic,  and  too 
scholastic  in  their  diction.  They  always  preferred  to  i 
use  large  language,  rather  than  good  Saxon  English. 
But  let  me  tell  you,  there  is  a  subtle  charm  in  the  use 
of  plain  language  that  pleases  people,  they  scarcely 
know  why.  It  gives  bell-notes  which  ring  out  sugges- 
tions to  the  popular  heart.  There  are  words  that  men 
have  heard  wdien  boys  at  home,  around  the  hearth  and 
the  table,  words  that  are  full  of  father  and  of  mother, 
and  full  of  common  and  domestic  life.  Those  are  the 
words  that  afterward,  when  brought  into  your  discourse, 
will  produce  a  strong  influence  on  your  auditors,  giving 
an  element  of  success ;  words  which  will  have  an  effect 
that  your  hearers  themselves  cannot  understand.  For, 
after  all,  simple  language  is  loaded  down  and  stained 
through  with  the  best  testimonies  and  memories  of  life. 
Now,  being  sure  that  your  theme  is  one  of  interest,  and 
worked  out  with  thought,  if  you  take  language  of  that 
kind,  and  use  it  in  colloquial  or  familiar  phrases,  you 
must  adapt  to  it  a  quiet  and  natural  inflection  of  voice, 
—  for  almost  all  the  sympathetic  part  of  the  voice  is  in 
the  lower  tones  and  in  a  conversational  strain,  —  and 
you  will  evoke  a  power  that  is  triumphant  in  reaching 
the  heart,  and  in  making  your  labors  successful  among 
the  multitudes. 

But  there  is  a  great  deal  besides  that.  Where  you 
are  not  enforcing  anything,  but  are  persuading  or  en- 


132 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


couraging  men,  you  will  find  your  work  very  difficult 
if  you  speak  in  a  loud  tone  of  voice.  You  may  fire  an. 
audience  with  a  loud  voice,  but  if  you  wish  to  draw^ 
them  into  sympathy  and  to  win  them  by  persuasion, 
and  are  near  enough  for  them  to  feel  your  magnet- 
ism and  see  your  eye,  so  that  you  need  not  liave  to 
strain  your  voice,  you  must  talk  to  them  as  a  father 
would  talk  to  his  child.  You  will  draw  them,  and 
will  gain  their  assent  to  your  propositions,  when:  you 
could  do  it  in  no  other  way,  and  certainly  not  by 
shouting. 

On  the  other  hand,  where  you  are  in  eager  exhorta- 
tion, or  speaking  on  public  topics,  where  your  theme 
calls  you  to  denunciation,  to  invective,  or  anything  of 
that  kind,  the  sharp  and  ringing  tones  that  belong  to 
the  upper  register  are  sometimes  well-nigh  omnipotent. 
There  are  cases  in  which  by  a  single  explosive  tone  a 
man  will  drive  home  a  thought  as  a  hammer  drives  a 
nail ;  and  there  is  no  escape  from  it.  I  recollect,  on 
one  occasion,  to  have  heard  Dr.  Humphrey,  President 
of  Amherst  College,  who  certainly  was  not  a  rhetorician, 
speaking  in  respect  to  the  treatment  of  the  Indians. 
He  used  one  of  the  most  provincial  of  provincialisms, 
yet  it  came  with  an  explosive  tone  that  fastened  it 
in  my  memory  ;  and  not  only  that,  but  it  gave  an 
impulse  to  my  whole  life,  I  might  say,  and  affected  me 
in  my  whole  course  and  labor  as  a  reformer.  It  was 
the  effect  of  but  a  single  w^ord.  He  had  been  describing 
the  shameful  manner  in  which  our  government  had 
broken  treaties  with  the  Indians  in  Florida  and  Georgia, 
under  the  influence  of  Southern  statesmanship.  He 
went  on  saying  what  was  just  and  what  was  right,  and 


RHETORICAL  DRILL  AND  GENERAL  TRAINING.  133 

came  to  the  discussion  of  some  critical  point  of  policy 
which  had  been  proposed,  when  he  suddenly  ceased  his 
argument,  and  exclaimed,  "  The  voice  of  the  people 
will  be  lifted  up,  and  they  shall  say  to  the  gwernment, 
YOU  SHA'NT!"  Now  ^^sha'n't"  is  not  very  good 
English,  but  it  is  provincial,  colloquial,  and  very  fa- 
miliar to  every  boy.  It  carried  a  home  feeling  with  it, 
and  we  all  knew  what  it  meant.  He  let  it  out  like  a 
bullet,  and  the  whole  chapel  was  hushed  for  the  mo- 
ment, and  then  the  rustle  followed  which  showed  that 
the  shot  had  struck.  It  has  remained  in  my  memory 
ever  since. 

NECESSITY  OF  DRILL. 

All  these  various  modes  of  drilling  the  voice  are 
very  important.  They  give  the  power  to  use  it  on 
a  long  strain  without  tiring  it ;  to  use  it  from  top  to 
bottom,  so  as  to  have  all  the  various  effects,  and  to 
know  what  they  are  ;  and  to  make  it  flexible,  so  that 
you  have  a  ready  instrument  at  your  will.  These 
are  very  important  elements  to  a  man  who  is  going  to 
be  a  preacher.  You  say,  "  Yes,  I  suppose  a  man  ought 
to  take  some  lessons  in  regard  to  these  things,  but  he 
need  not  make  it  a  study."  I  beg  your  pardon,  gen- 
tlemen, don't  touch  it  unless  you  are  going  to  make 
thorough  work  of  it.  No  knowledge  is  really  knowU 
edge  until  you  can  use  it  without  knowing  it.  You  do 
not  understand  the  truth  of  anything  until  it  has  so 
far  sunk  into  you  that  you  have  almost  forgotten 
where  you  got  it.  No  man  knows  how  to  play  a  piano 
who  stops  and  says,  Let  me  see,  that  is  B,  and  that 
IS  D,"  and  so  on.    When  a  man  has  learned  and  mas- 


134 


LECTtJRES  ON  t^REACHlNG. 


(ered  his  instrument  thoroughly,  he  does  not  stop  to 
think  which  keys  he  must  strike,  but  his  fingers  glide 
from  one  to  the  other  mechanically,  automatically,  al- 
most involuntarily.  This  subtle  power  comes  out  only 
when  he  has  subdued  his  instrument  and  forgotten 
himself,  conscious  of  nothing  but  the  ideas  and  har- 
monies which  he  wishes  to  express. 

If  you  desire  to  have  your  voice  at  its  best,  and 
to  make  the  best  use  of  it,  you  must  go  into  a 
drill  which  will  become  so  familiar  that  it  ceases 
to  be  a  matter  of  thought,  and  the  voice  takes  care 
of  itself.  This  ought  to  be  done  under  the  best  in- 
structors, if  you  have  the  opportunity  ;  if  not,  then 
study  the  best  books  and  faithfully  practice  their  direc- 
tions. It  was  my  good  fortune,  in  early  academical 
life,  to  fall  into  the  hands  of  your  estimable  fellow- 
citizen.  Professor  Lovell,  now  of  New  Haven,  and  for  a 
period  of  three  years  I  was  drilled  incessantly  (you 
might  not  suspect  it,  but  I  was)  in  posturing,  gesture, 
and  voice-culture.  His  manner,  however,  he  very^ 
properly  did  not  communicate  to  me.  And  manner 
is  a  thing  wliich,  let  me  here  remark,  should,  never 
be  communicated  or  imitated.  It  was  the  skill  of 
that  gentleman  that  he  never  left  a  manner  with 
anybody.  He  simply  gave  his  pupils  the  knowledge 
of  what  they  had  in  themselves.  Afterward,  when 
going  to  the  seminary,  I  carried  the  method  of  his  in- 
structions with  me,  as  did  others.  We  practiced  a 
great  deal  on  what  was  called  "  Dr.  Barber's  System," 
which  was  then  in  vogue,  and  particularly  in  develop- 
ing the  voice  in  its  lower  register,  and  also  upon  the 
explosive  tones.    There  was  a  large  grove  lying  be- 


RHETORICAL  DRILL  AND  GENERAL  TRAINING.  135 

tween  the  seminary  and  my  father's  house,  and  it  was 
the  habit  of  my  brother  Charles  and  myself,  and  one 
or  two  others,  to  make  the  night,  and  even  the  day, 
hideous  with  our  voices,  as  w^e  passed  backward  and 
forward  through  the  wood,  exploding  all  the  A^owels, 
from  the  bottom  to  the  very  top  of  our  voices.  I 
found  it  to  be  a  very  manifest  benefit,  and  one  that 
has  remained  with  me  all  my  life  long.  The  drill  that 
I  underwent  produced,  not  a  rhetorical  manner,  but  a 
flexible  instrument,  that  accommodated  itself  readily  to 
every  kind  of  thought  and  every  shape  of  feeling,  and 
obeyed  the  inward  will  in  the  outward  realization  of 
the  results  of  rules  and  regulations. 

HEALTH  OF  THE  VOICE. 

In  respect  to  the  preservation  of  the  voice  there  is 
but  little  to  be  said,  except  this,  that  a  good,  healthy 
man,  who  maintains  wholesome  habits,  keeps  his  neck 
tough,  treats  his  head  and  chest  daily  with  cold  affu- 
sions, and  does  not  exhaust  himself  unnecessarily 
in  overstrained  speech,  should  not  find  it  difficult 
to  maintain  his  voice  in  a  healthy  condition,  and  that 
through  life.  I  will  not  go  into  that  obscure  subject 
of  ministers'  bronchitis.  I  never  had  it,  and  therefore 
know  nothing  of  it,  for  which  I  thank  God.  If  you 
have  it,  or  are  threatened  with  it,  it  is  rather  for  your 
physician  than  for  an  unskilled  person  to  give  you 
directions  about  it.  But,  generally,  a  healthy  body 
and  a  careful  prudence  in  the  exercise  of  the  voice 
will,  I  think,  go  far  to  make  you  sound  speakers  dur- 
ing the  whole  of  your  lives, 


136 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


BODILY  CARRIAGE  — -  POSTURE. 

It  is  not  necessary  that  a  man  should  stand  awk- 
wardly because  it  is  natural.  It  is  not  necessary  that 
a  man,  because  he  may  not  be  able  to  stand  like  the 
statue  of  Apollo,  should  stand  ungracefully.  He  loses, 
unconsciously,  a  certain  power ;  for,  although  he  does 
not  need  a  very  fine  physical  figure  (which  is  rather 
y  a  hindrance,  I  think),  yet  he  should  be  pleasing  in 
his  bearing  and  gestures.  A  man  who  is  very  beauti- 
ful and  superlatively  graceful  sets  people  to  admiring 
him  ;  they  make  a  kind  of  monkey  god  of  him,  and  it 
stands  in  the  way  of  his  usefulness.  From  this  temp- 
tation most  of  us  have  been  mercifully  delivered.  On 
the  other  hand,  what  we  call  naturalness,  fitness,  good 
\^  taste,  and  propriety  are  to  be  sought.  You  like  to  see 
a  man  come  into  your  parlor  with,  at  least,  ordinary 
good  manners  and  some  sense  of  propriety,  and  what 
you  require  in  your  parlor  you  certainly  have  a  right 
to  expect  in  church.  One  of  the  reasons  why  I  con- 
demn  these  churns  called  pulpits  is  that  they  teach 
.  a  man  bad  habits  ;  he  is  heedless  of  his  posture,  and 
learns  bad  tricks  behind  these  bulwarks.  He  thinks 
that  people  will  not  see  them. 

GESTURE. 

So  with  gestures.  There  are  certain  people  who  will 
never  make  many  gestures,  but  they  should  see  to  it 
that  what  they  do  make  shall  be  graceful  and  appropri- 
ate. There  are  others  who  are  impulsive,  and  so  full 
of  feeling  that  they  throw  it  out  in  every  direction,  and 
it  is,  therefore,  all  the  more  important  that  their  action 


KHETORICAL  DRILL  AND  GENERAL  TRAINING.  137 

shall  be  shorn  of  awkwardness  and  constrained  man- 
nerism. Now  and' then  a  man  is  absolutely  dramatic, 
as,  for  instance,  John  B.  Gough,  who  could  not  speak 
otherwise.  It  is  unconscious  with.  him.  It  is  inherent 
in  all  natural  orators  ;  they  put  themselves  at  once, 
unconsciously,  in  sympathy  with  the  things  they  are 
describing.  In  any  of  these  situations,  whether  you  are 
inclined  to  but  little  action  or  a  great  deal,  or  even  to 
dramatic  forms  of  action,  it  is  very  desirable  that  you 
should  drill  yourselves  and  . practice  incessantly,  so  that 
your  gestures  shall  not  offend  good  taste.  This,  too,  is 
a  very  different  thing  from  practicing  before  a  mirror, 
and  it  is  a  very  different  thing  from  making  actors  of 
yourselves.  It  is  an  education  that  ought  to  take  place 
early,  and  which  ought  to  be  incorporated  into  your 
very  being. 

SEMINARY  TRAINING. 

I  will  pass  on  now  to  some  suggestions  in  respect  to 
your  seminary  course.  I  know  very  well  how  impa- 
tient and  eager  many  students  are  to  get  rid  of  the 
two  or  three  years'  training  which  is  required  in  the 
seminary.  A  man  who  is  naturally  a  scholar  loves  to 
procure  knowledge,  because  it  is  a  luxury  for  him  to 
study.  He  will  probably  be  an  over-studious  man,  and 
will  need  to  be  checked  rather  than  stimulated  to 
greater  activity.  But  those  who  are  impatient  of 
study,  and  are  longing  to  go  into  the  field,  and  who 
want  to  pray  and  converse  with  impenitent  sinners  and 
bring  tliem  into  the  Kingdom,  will  often  say,  What 
do  you  suppose  Latin  and  Greek  have  got  to  do  with 
that ;  can't  we  begin  the  work  without  any  such  labori- 


138 


LECTURES  ON  PKEACHING. 


ous  preparation  as  this  ? "  I  know  what  the  feeling 
is ;  I  have  seen  it  displayed  very  often. 

If  you  will  read  the  familiar  correspondence  of  Gen- 
eral Sherman  during  the  war,  which  was  published  by 
the  War  Department,  you  will  see  that,  months  and 
months  before  his  great  march,  he  was  studying  the 
country  through  which  he  was  about  to  go,  its  resources, 
its  power  of  sustaining  armies,  its  populousness,  the 
habits  of  the  people,  in  short,  everything  that  be- 
longed to  it,  in  every  relation,  and  all  the  questions 
that  could  possibly  arise  in  regard  to  it.  He  had  dis- 
cussed them  on  both  sides  and  on  two  or  three  hypoth- 
eses, so  that  when  he  started  upon  his  famous  march 
he  had  really  gone  o.ver  the  country  in  advance,  and 
made  himself  the  military  master  of  its  features  and 
character.  He  was  possessed  of  all  the  knowledge 
necessary  to  enable  him  to  grajjple  with  any  event 
that  might  take  place.  He  was  prepared  for  any 
of  two  or  three  different  lines  of  action.  Now,  you 
have  a  campaign  that  is  a  great  deal  longer  than  his, 
and  an  enemy  that  is  a  great  deal  harder  to  fight ;  and 
you  must  make  diligent  preparation.  You  must  Jay 
up  all  the  knowledge  you  can,  now,  and  form  habits  of 
earnest  study  that  shall  make  your  whole  after-life's 
work  comparatively  easy.  You  will  have  enough  di- 
rect action  when  you  get  into  the  field ;  and  it  be- 
hooves you  now  to  do  whatever  you  can  to  abbreviate 
your  future  labors. 

STUDY  OF  THE  BIBLE. 

In  the  first  place,  the  whole  science  of  interpreta- 
tion, the  whole  study  of  the  Word  of  God  and  all  the 


RHETORICAL  iDRlLL  AND  GENERAL  TRAINING.  l39 

developments  that  are  either  based  upon  it  or  nearly 
touch  it,  will  be  a  world  of  advantage  to  you.  I  had 
the  good  fortune  to  be  under  Professor  Stowe  in  my 
theological  training.  Those  who  have  gone  through  a 
course  with  him  need  not  be  told  how  much  knowledge 
lie  has,  nor  his  keen  and  crystalline  way  of  putting 
that  knowledge.  The  advantages  which  I  derived  from 
his  teaching,  his  way  of  taking  bold  of  Scripture,  the 
knowledge  I  got  of  the  book  as  a  whole,  are  inesti- 
mable to  me.  These  I  got  while  pursuing  my  studies 
in  the  seminary.  In  looking  over  my  old  note-books, 
which  I  filled  independently  of  my  course  there,  but 
which  were  partly  in  consequence  of  it  and  partly  from 
teaching  in  the  Bible  class,  I  found  I  had  gone  then 
very  nearly  through  tlie  New  Testament  with  close  and 
careful  study,  and  had  formed  an  intimate  acquaint- 
ance with  it,  before  I  began  to  preach  regularly.  In 
the  early  years  of  my  ministry  I  engaged  in  a  great 
amount  of  exegetical  study  and  interpretation  of  the 
Word  of  God,  having  one  service  every  week  which 
was  mainly  devoted  to  that  work.  Now,  the  prelimi- 
nary acquisition  of  the  power  to  do  that  will  abbreviate 
your  after-work  more  tlian  you  can  tell.  Do  not 
believe  that  your  enthusiasm  will  be  a  light  always 
burning.  You  must  have  oil  in  your  lamps.  Study 
and  patient  labor  are  indispensable  even  to  genius. 
God  may  have  given  you  genius,  but  unless  he  has  also 
given  you  industry,  the  genius  will  leak  away,  unused, 
wasted,  without  profit.  Inspiration,  intuition,  and  all 
the  efflorescence  of  genius,  are  Divine  gifts ;  yet  there 
must  be  some  material  for  them  to  work  upon.  You 
cannot  have  a  flame  unless  there  is  something  that  will 


140 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


feed  combustion  ;  you  cannot  study  too  much  while  in 
the  seminary,  preparing  for  the  field  of  your  future 
labors.  It  will  neither  cumber  you  nor  hinder  you. 
It  will  facilitate  your  work  at  every  step. 

THEOLOGY. 

In  respect  to  systematic  theology  the  same  is  true. 
It  is  very  desirable,  I  think,  that  every  preacher  should 
have  not  merely  gone  through  a  system,  but  that  he 
should  have  studied  comparative  theology.  He  ought 
to  study  that  system  on  which  he  expects  to  base  his 
ministry ;  and  it  is  also  desirable  that  he  should  take 
cross-views  of  differing  systems  of  theology,  —  for  a 
variety  of  reasons.  You  may  think  you  are  going  to 
preach  some  particular  system,  —  but  most  of  you  will 
not,  even  if  you  try.  You  may  take  your  teachers' 
views  of  theology  and  preach  them  for  a  w^hile,  but 
they  will  not  suit  you  long.  Every  man  who  is  fit  to 
preach  w^ill,  before  many  years,  begin  to  have  an  out- 
line of  his  own  theology  very  distinctively  marked  out. 
But  it  is  always  necessary  to  know  what  other  men  have 
thought,  to  practice  close  thinking,  to  be  drilled  in 
sharp  and  nice  discrimination,  and  to  have  a  mind  that 
is  not  slatternly  and  loose,  but  which  know^s  how  to 
work  philosophically.  You  are  to  meet  men  who  know 
how  to  think,  if  you  do  not.  You  may  be  called  to 
take  a  parish  in  which  the  lawyer,  the  doctor,  and  two 
or  three  retired  gentlemen  w^ill  know  a  great  deal  more 
than  you  do,  and  will  turn  np  their  noses  whenever 
you  undertake  to  preach  a  sermon.  You  cannot  afford 
to  have  a  man  in  your  parish  accuse  you  of  being  a 
boy  in  the  pulpit.    Every  man  who  preaches  from  year 


RHETOEICAL  DRILL  AND  GENERAL  TRAINING.  141 

r 

to  year  has  a  system.  He  may  not  have  the  current 
one.  It  may  not  be  Calvin  after  the  manner  of  Ed- 
wards, nor  Calvin  according  to  Dwight,  nor  Calvin  as 
it  is  taught  at  Princeton,  nor  yet  Arniinianism.  It 
may  be  this,  that,  or  the  other,  of  the  various  shades,  — 
or  a  new  shade  of  his  own.  So  that  you  must  form 
the  mental  habit  of  looking  at  all  presentations  of 
truth.  You  will  observe  that  it  is  not  necessary  for  a 
minister  to  give  lectures  in  theology  to  his  people, 
however  much  he  may  know,  —  though  there  might  be 
worse  things  than  that.  You  might  have  an  occasional 
familiar  lecture  on  special  points  of  theology,  and  in- 
doctrinate your  people  with  them.  But  your  sermons 
must  be  philosophical  in  principle  and  thoroughly 
thought  out.  You  must  acquire  the  habit  of  thinking, 
of  looking  at  truth,  not  in  isolated  and  fragmentary 
forms,  but  in  all  its  relations ;  and  of  using  it  con- 
stantly as  an  instrument  of  producing  good.  You  see 
I  do  believe  in  the  science  of  theology,  though  I  may 
not  give  my  faith  to  any  particular  school  of  it,  in  all 
points.  But  no  school  can  dispense  with  a  habit  of 
thinking  according  to  the  laws  of  cause  and  effect,  for 
that  is  absolutely  necessary. 

A  SMALL  PARISH  AT  FIRST, 

In  your  first  settlement,  young  gentlemen,  remember 
the  parable.  When  you  are  invited  to  a  feast,  take 
not  the  highest  seat,  but  take  rather  the  lowest  place, 
so  that  it  shall  be  said  to  you,  "  Friend,  go  up  higher." 

When  a  young  man  is  just  going  out,  and  is  begin- 
ning to  preach,  and  men  find  great  hopes  in  him,  one 
of  the  worst  things  that  can  befall  him  is  to  think 


142 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


himself  an  uncommon  man,  a  man  of  prospects  ;  and 
to  have  it  whispered  here  and  there, 0,  he  will  shake 
the  world  yet  ! "  These  things  are  very  mischievous 
to  a  young  man,  especially  if  they  lead  him  to  start 
at  a  faster  pace  than  he  can  well  maintain.  One  of 
the  most  common  mistakes  a  young  man  makes  is  in 
thinking  that  he  must  have  a  place  large  enough  for 
his  talents ;  he  does  not  know  where  to  bestow  his 
goods  !  If  there  is  an  opportunity  to  take  a  small 
country  place  he  will  take  it  "just  temporarily,"  but 
he  has  his  eye  on  four  or  five  calls,  which  he  thinks  are 
very  likely  to  come  to  him.  This  conceit  is  very  dele- 
terious. When  you  enter  upon  the  work  of  the  min- 
istry it  is  very  desirable  that  you  should  take  a  small 
and  humble  sphere,  even  if  you  afterward  are  called  to 
a  large  one.    You  should  begin  at  the  bottom. 

In  the  first  place,  you  cannot  develop  so  well  in  any 
other  way  the  needful  creative  and  administrative 
faculties.  If  I  were  Pope  in  America,  besides  a  hun- 
dred other  things  that  would  be  done,  I  would  send 
every  young  man  that  was  anxious  to  preach  into  the 
extreme  West,  and  I  would  make  him  think  that  he 
was  never  coming  back  again.  He  should  work  there 
for  ten  years  ;  then  I  think  he  might  begin  to  be  ready 
for  a  larger  place,  or  an  older  church.  I  would  not  let 
him  know  my  future  plans  for  liim,  but  he  should 
think  he  was  going  to  remain  there,  and  do  his  work. 

One  especial  advantage  of  a  small  parish  is  that  you 
are  obliged  to  do  your  work  by  knowing  every  person 
in  the  community,  studying  every  one  of  them,  and 
knowing  how  to  impress  and  manage  them  by  your 
personal  influence   and   the   power   of  the  gospel. 


feHETOmCAL  DRILL  AND  GENERAL  TRAINING. 


Every  young  minister,  too,  ought  to  have  a  parish 
where  he  shall  have  some  time  to  study,  where  he  shall 
not  be  hurried  and  worried  with  extra  meetings,  with 
excitements  and  with  various  distractions.  When  you 
first  begin  to  preach,  you  have  a  raw,  untrained  nervous 
system,  which  cannot  bear  so  much  as  it  can  afterward. 
A  man's  brain  gets  tough  by  exercise.  I  can  now  go 
through  an  amount  of  brain-work  that  would  have 
killed  me  outright  in  the  first  years  of  my  ministerial 
life.  I  can  trace  the  gradually  accumulating  power  of 
endurance  of  brain  excitement. 

AN  EARLY  EXPERIENCE  IN  THE  WEST. 

It  was  my  lot  at  first  to  be  placed  in  a  village  with 
a  mere  handful  of  inhabitants  in  one  of  the  Western 
States.  I  conceive  it  to  be  one  of  the  kindnesses  of 
Providence  that  I  was  sent  to  so  small  a  place.  I  had 
but  one  male  member  in  the  church,  and  I  wished  him 
out  all  the  time  I  was  there.  (Let  me  illustrate  by 
personal  allusions,  if  you  please  ;  for  I  do  not  know 
why  you  ask  ministers  from  active  parishes  to  advise 
you,  unless  they  should  tell  you  something  of  their 
experience.) 

I  practiced  public  speaking  from  the  time  of  my 
sophomore  year  in  college.  I  was  addicted  to  going  out 
and  making  temperance  speeches,  and  holding  confer- 
rence  meetings,  so  that  I  acquired  considerable  confi- 
dence, being  naturally  very  diffident.  When  I  went 
to  the  seminary  I  still  kept  up  that  habit,  practicing 
whenever  I  had  the  opportunity.  At  tlie  end  of  my 
three  years'  seminary  course  —  six  months  of  which, 
however,  were  diverted  to  editorial  work,  a  loss  of  time 


144 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


to  my  studies  which  was  afterwards  made  up  —  I  went 
to  a  small  town  in  Indiana,  the  last  one  in  the  State 
towards  Cincinnati,  on  the  Ohio  Eiver.  It  had  perhaps 
five  or  six  hundred  inhabitants.  It  had  in  it  a  Meth- 
odist, a  Baptist,  and  this  Presbyterian  Church  to  which 
I  went.  The  church  would  hold,  perhaps,  from  two 
hundred  and  fifty  to  three  hundred  people.  It  had  no 
lamps  and  no  hymn-books.  It  had  nineteen  female 
members ;  and  the  whole  congregation  could  hardly 
raise  from  $200  to  $250  as  salary.  I  took  that  field 
and  went  to  work  in  it. 

Among  the  earliest  things  I  did  was  to  beg  money 
from  Cincinnati  to  buy  side-lamps  to  hang  up  in  the 
church,  so  that  we  could  have  night  service.  After  be- 
ing there  a  month  or  two  I  went  to  Cincinnati  again, 
and  collected  money  enough  to  buy  hymn-books.  I 
distributed  them  in  the  seats.  Before  this  the  hymns 
had  been  lined  out.  I  recollect  one  of  the  first  strokes 
of  management  I  ever  attempted  in  that  parish  w^as  in 
regard  to  these  hymn-books.  Instead  of  asking  the 
people  if  they  were  willing  to  have  them,  I  just  put 
the  books  into  the  pews ;  for  there  are  ten  men  that 
will  fight  a  change  about  which  they  are  consulted, 
to  one  that  will  fight  it  when  it  has  taken  place.  I 
simply  made  the  change  for  them.  There  was  a  little 
looking  up  and  looking  around,  but  nothing  was  said. 
So  after  that  we  sang  out  of  books.  Then  there  was 
n6body  in  the  church  to  light  the  lamps,  and  they  could 
not  afford  to  get  a  sexton.  Such  a  thing  was  unknown 
in  the  primitive  simplicity  of  that  Hoosier  time.  Well, 
I  unanimously  elected  myself  to  be  the  sexton.  I  swept 
out  the  church,  trimmed  the  lamps  and  lighted  them. 


RHETOBICAL  DRILL  AND  GENERAL  TRAINING.  145 


I  was,  literally,  the  light  of  that  church.  I  did  n't  stop 
to  groan  about  it,  or  moan  about  it,  but  I  did  it.  At 
first,  the  men-folk  thereabout  seemed  to  think  it  was 
chaff  to  catch  them  with,  or  something  of  that  kind ; 
but  I  went  steadily  on  doing  the  work.  After  a  month 
or  so  two  young  men,  who  were  clerks  in  a  store  there, 
suggested  to  me  that  they  would  help  me.  I  did  n't 
think  I  wanted  any  help ;  it  was  only  what  one  man 
could  do."  Then  they  suggested  three  or  four  of  us 
taking  one  month  each,  and  in  that  way  they  were 
worked  in. 

It  was  the  best  thing  that  ever  happened  to  them. 
Having  something  to  do  in  the  church  was  a  means  of 
grace  to  them.  It  drew  them  to  me  and  me  to  them. 
None  of  them  were  Christian  young  men ;  but  I  con- 
sulted them  about  various  things,  and  by  and  by  I 
brought  a  case  to  them.  I  said,  Here  is  a  young  man 
who  is  in  great  danger  of  going  the  wrong  way  and 
losing  his  soul.  What  do  you  think  is  the  best  means 
of  getting  at  him  ? "  It  made  them  rather  sober  and 
thoughtful  to  be  talking  about  the  salvation  of  that 
young  man's  soul,  and  the  upshot  was  that  they  saved 
their  own.  They  very  soon  afterward  came  into  the 
Spirit,  and  were  converted,  and  became  good  Christian 
men. 

Now,  while  I  was  there,  I  preached  the  best  sermons 
I  knew  how  to  get  up.  I  remember  distinctly  that 
every  Sunday  night  I  had  a  headache.  I  went  to  bed 
every  Sunday  night  with  a  vow  registered  that  I  would 
buy  a  farm  and  quit  the  ministry.  If  I  have  said  it 
once,  I  have  said  it  five  hundred  times,  that  I  spoilt  a 
good  farmer  to  make  a  poor  minister. 


146 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


I  said  a  great  many  extravagant  things  in  my  pul- 
pit, and  preached  with  a  great  deal  of  crudeness.  I 
preached  a  great  many  sermons,  which,  after  six  months, 
I  would  not  have  preached  again.  I  frequently  did  as 
many  young  men  do,  shaped  into  a  general  truth  that 
which  was  truth  only  under  certain  circumstances,  and 
with  a  particular  class  of  people. 

I  was  a  great  reader  of  the  old  sermonizers.  I  read 
old  Eobert  South  through  and  through  ;  I  saturated 
myself  with  South  ;  I  formed  much  of  my  style  and 
my  handling  of  texts  on  his  methods.  I  obtained  a 
vast  amount  of  instruction  and  assistance  from  others 
of  those  old  sermonizers,  who  w^ere  as  familiar  to  me  as 
my  own  name.  I  read  Barrow,  Howe,  Sherlock,  Butler, 
and  Edwards  particularly.  I  preached  a  great  many 
sermons  while  reading  these  old  men,  and  upon  their 
discourses  I  often  founded  the  framework  of  my  own. 
After  I  had  preached  them,  I  said  to  myself,  "  That 
will  never  do  ;  I  would  n't  preach  that  again  for  all  the 
world."  But  I  was  learning,  and  nobody  ever  tripped 
me  up.  I  had  no  Board  of  Elders  ready  to  bring  me 
back  to  orthodoxy.  I  had  time  to  sow  all  my  minis- 
terial wild  oats,  and  without  damage  to  my  people,  for 
they  knew  too  little  to  know  whether  I  was  orthodox 
or  not.  And  it  was,  generally,  greatly  to  their  advan- 
tage, because  people  are  very  much  like  fishes.  Whales 
take  vast  quantities  of  water  into  their  mouths  for  the 
sake  of  the  animalculse  it  contains,  and  then  blow  out 
the  water,  while  keeping  in  the  food.  People  do  pretty 
much  the  same.  They  don't  believe  half  that  you  say: 
The  part  that  is  nutritious  they  keep,  and  the  rest  they 
let  alone.    This  early  ministerial  training  does  not  hurt 


RHETORICAL  DRILL  AND  GENERAL  TRAINING.  147 


them,  but  it  is  invaluable  to  a  young  man  who  is  get- 
ting the  bearings  of  his  new  station,  and  learning  how 
to  handle  the  ship  that  God  has  given  him  to  sail. 

GENERAL  HINTS 

After  faithful  and  constant  practice  in  such  a  place 
as  this,  you  will  after  a  yery  little  time  begin  to  make 
fewer  and  fewer  mistakes,  and  you  will  be  able  to  bear 
more  and  more  work.  You  will  be  able  to  do  more 
creative  work  after  this  preparation,  and  to  make  the 
most  of  your  resources.  You  will  also  learn  how  to 
handle  men  and  things,  and  you  will  be  determined 
upon  success  in  your  work ;  in  other  words,  it  will  make 
a  man  of  you. 

Let  me  tell  you  one  secret :  that  a  strong  country 
church  is  a  position  of  very  much  more  influence  than 
nineteen  out  of  twenty  city  churches.  City  churches 
are  more  nearly  like,  wells  than  anything  else.  They  |/ 
have  their  own  little  circle,  and  outside  of  that  nothing. 
Country  churches  are  like  rivers.  They  are  collected 
from  far-distant  regions,  and  run  a  great  way.  Then 
again,  in  a  city,  three  or  four  churches  only  are  con- 
spicuous and  popular,  and  the  rest  are  comparatively 
unknown.  Keep  out  of  the  city  as  long  as  you  can. 
Do  not  aspire  to  so-called  great  churches  and  great 
places.  Go  into  rural  neighborhoods.  Begin  your 
ministry  with  the  common  people.  Get  seasoned  with 
the  humanity  and  sympatliies  which  belong  to  men  ; 
mix  with  farmers,  mechanics,  and  laboring  men ;  eat 
with  them,  sleep  with  them ;  for,  after  all,  there  is  the 
great  substance  of  humanity.  You  will  get  it  in  its 
purest  and  simplest  forms  there.    You  will  have  time 


148 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


to  grow  and  strengthen  yourselves.  Your  bodies  will 
grow  wholesome.  Your  brains  will  grow  strong.  Your 
nervous  systems  will  get  tough,  so  that  if  ever  God 
opens  the  door  and  calls  you  to  a  more  difficult  sphere, 
you  can  fill  it,  and  do  twice  as  much  work  with  more 
certainty  and  with  more  success  than  if  called  to  the 
larger  place  in  the  beginning  of  your  ministry. 

QUESTIONS  AND  ANSWERS. 

Q.  How  about  living  in  those  little  places  that  don't  pay 
enough  to  live  upon  ? 

Mr.  Beecher.  —  Live  within  your  income. 

There  was  a  Mr.  Bushnell,  quite  as  famous  in  his 
way,  in  Ohio,  as  Horace  Bushnell  was  in  Connecticut, 
although  of  different  make.  He  was  a  man  like  Paul, 
insignificant  in  presence,  small,  and  weak-eyed,  and  I 
believe,  now,  is  blind  entirely.  He  was  a  man  who,  be- 
sides having  a  heart  consecrated  to  God  and  humanity, 
was  also  fearless,  brave,  and  enterprising.  There  was 
a  little  settlement  below  Cincinnati,  called  Cleves.  The 
people  there  had  driven  out  every  minister  they  had 
had.  The  Methodists  tried  it,  and  if  they  cannot  stick, 
you  may  say  it  is  a  tough  place.  They  had  to  abandon 
that  neighborhood.  Bushnell  determined  that  the  gos- 
pel should  be  preached  there,  and  thither  he  went;  and 
it  was  at  a  time,  too,  when  it  was  enough  to  burn  a  man 
to  have  it  known  that  he  was  an  abolitionist.  Bush- 
nell went  tliere  and  preached,  and  took  no  pains  to  hide 
the  fact  in  the  neighborhood  that  he  was  an  abolitionist, 
although  he  was  so  near  Kentucky,  which  was  just 
over  the  river.    He  could  not  get  a  man  in  that  region 


RHETORICAL  DRILL  AND  GENERAL  TRAINING.  149 

who  would  take  him  to  board.  Finally,  he  found  an 
old  cabin  that  was  abandoned  by  some  negroes.  He 
daubed  it  over  with  mud,  and  fixed  it  up  so  that  it 
would  shelter  him.  He  went  into  the  place,  lived  in  it, 
cooked  for  himself,  took  care  of  himself,  and  preached 
to  this  people. 

At  first  they  would  n't  go  to  hear  him.  He  started 
out  after  them.  He  went  into  the  fields  and  talked 
with  them.  He  said,  Now  I  will  tell  you,  you  may 
just  as  well  come  to  church  ;  if  you  won't  come  where 
I  preach,  I  shall  go  to  you." 

They  began  to  admire  the  man's  pluck.  He  is  a 
little  fellow,"  they  said,  but  he  is  so  courageous ! " 
They  had  threatened  him  with  everything;  but  they 
finally  began  to  listen  to  him.  The  first  man  that 
came  was  an  infidel.  He  had  been  made  an  infidel  by 
the  teachings  of  Christian  churches  and  ministers  that 
the  Eible  justified  slavery.  He  was  a  man  of  great 
benevolence  and  great  justice,  and  he  said,  "  If  Chris- 
tianity teaches  that,  I  will  never  be  a  Christian."  When 
he  heard  of  a  minister  who  denounced  slavery,  and 
proved  from  the  Bible  that  it  was  unjust,  he  said,  I 
want  to  hear  that  man."  "When  he  found  what  manner 
of  man  he  was,  he  joined  himself  to  the  new-comer. 
He  was  converted,  and  became  an  active  Christian  man. 
The  result  was,  that  Bushnell  very  soon  gathered  up  a 
little  church,  and  they  had  prayer-meetings  and  other 
Christian  gatherings  in  the  neighborhood,  which  effec- 
tively began  the  work  of  regenerating  it. 

Now  I  want  to  know  what  success  Bushnell  would 
have  met  witli  if  he  had  put  on  a  broadcloth  coat,  and 
had  questioned  and  paltered  with  the  people,  saying. 


150 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


How  much  salary  will  you  give  ine  ? "  or  if  he  had 
asked  himself,  Is  it  my  duty  to  settle  down  there  ? " 
I  believe  that  the  Word  of  Christ  is  the  best  charter 
of  every  Christian  minister.  Seek  ye  first  the  king- 
dom of  God  and  his  righteousness,  and  all  these  things 
shall  be  added  unto  you."  There  is  nothing  that 
makes  salary  so  fast  as  not  to  care  for  it,  and  to  put 
your  whole  life  and  soul  into  the  work  of  God's  min- 
istry, so  that  men  feel  to  the  bottom  of  their  hearts 
that  there  is  a  man  who  has  got  hold  of  them.  No  man 
will  starve.  I  do  not  mean  by  that  tliat  there  is  to  be 
no  consideration  for  the  future,  but  I  mean  to  say  tliat  a 
generous  trust  in  the  people  and  an  earnest  devotion 
to  work  will  insure  a  man  all  the  support  that  he  needs. 

Q.  Would  you  advise  a  young  man  to  settle  immediately  upon 
leaving  the  seminary,  especially  in  going  West  ? 

Yes ;  the  quicker  you  get  to  work  after  you  are 
through  your  studies  the  better.  People  sometimes 
say,  "  Do  you  think  it  would  be  better  for  me  to  go  to 
Edinburgh  and  take  a  course  there  ? "  or,  "  How  would 
it  be  if  I  should  go  to  Germany  ? "  Well,  if  you  are 
going  to  be  a  critical  student,  a  professor,  or  if  you  are 
going  to  compile  a  dictionary  or  take  a  chair  in  a  theo- 
logical seminary  ;  if  your  life  is  going  to  be  a  scholar's 
life,  in  contradistinction  from  a  preacher's  life,  —  I 
should  say  that  a  post-seminary  course  is  advisable. 
But,  if  you  are  going  to  be  working  among  men,  do  not 
delay  your  work  one  unnecessary  moment  after  getting 
through  your  seminary  course.  An  academical  educa- 
tion is  somewhat  exclusive  in  its  character,  and  tends 
to  foster  a  class-spirit.    You  are  separated  from  tlie 


RHETOKICAL  DRILL  AND  GENERAL  TRAINING.  151 

people,  and  are  kept  out  of  the  ordinary  run  of  human 
hfe ;  you  are,  as  it  were,  made  monks  of.  If  you  are 
fit  for  your  work,  the  sooner  you  get  into  real  business 
in  the  field,  the  better  for  you. 

Q.  Would  you  have  a  man  preach  while  he  is  in  the  seminary  ? 

I  should  say.  Yes.  The  habit  of  bringing  your 
minds  to  bear  on  other  people,  in  a  moral  point  of 
view,  ought  to  be  kept  up  all  the  way  through,  from 
beginning  to  end.  A  habit  of  thinking  of  other  peo- 
ple's welfare,  laboring  for  it,  and  accumulating  the 
material  by  which  you  will  accomplish  it,  carrying  your 
heart  warm  all  tlie  time,  is  a  good  thing  for  a  man  who 
is  going  to  preach  and  to  be  a  minister  of  Christ. 

Q.  Are  not  these  little  mean  places  very  unfavorable  for  the 
culture  of  grace,  etc.  ? 

Mr.  Beecher.  —  They  are  not  mean. 

Q.  I  think  your  first  settlement,  Lawrenceburg,  was  mean. 

Mr.  Beecher.  —  No ;  it  was  not.  It  was  a  good 
place  to  train  a  young  minister.  We  are  all  sinful. 
My  church  was  sinful,  and  its  pastor  was.  There  were 
various  degrees  of  sinners  all  the  way  through.  But 
that  little  town  had  one  woman  in  it  that  redeemed  the 
place,  and  if  I  had  the  making  of  a  Catholic  calendar  I 
would  enroll  her  as  a  saint.  Old  Mother  Eice  taught 
me  more  practical  godliness  than  any  one  else,  except 
my  owm  father.  She  was  a  laboring- woman,  the  wife 
of  an  old,  drunken,  retired  sea-captain.  They  were  so 
poor  that  they  had  to  live  above  a  cooper's  shop,  with 
loose  planks  for  a  floor,  which  wabbled  as  you  walked 
over  them,  and  through  which  you  could  see  the  men 
at  work  below^    Her  husband  would  abuse  her  and 


152 


LEGTUKES  ON  PREACHING. 


swear  at  her.  But  there  was  never  any  person  in  dis- 
tress in  the  town  that  Mother  Kice  did  not  visit.  No 
case  of  sickness  occurred  that  she  did  not  consecrate 
the  chamber  with  her  presence.  There  was  nobody  who 
was  discouraged  and  needed  comfort  that  did  not  ex- 
perience her  kind  oflices.  She  was  one  of  the  sweetest, 
gentlest,  and  serenest  of  women.  This  place  was  like 
the  mud  and  rubbish  brought  up  by  the  diver,  which 
yet  contains  a  beautiful  pearl.  This  woman  would 
have  redeemed  that  town  from  being  mean,  even  if  it 
had  had  no  other  good  thing  in  it.  You  can  always 
find  goodness  and  nobility  by  looking  for  it. 

A  Student.  —  I  know  something  about  the  Bushnell  of  whom 
you  have  spoken,  and,  although  he  is  a  man  whom  everybody 
regards  with  respect,  yet  he  is  not  a  man  who  conies  up  to  your 
idea  of  what  a  minister  should  be. 

Mr.  Beecher.  —  I  only  mentioned  his  name  to  illus- 
trate how  a  man  will  succeed  by  going  into  the  lowest 
and  most  hardened  community  with  a  consecrated 
spirit,  with  courage,  and  witli  a  determination  to  suc- 
ceed. I  do  not  hold  him  up  as  a  model  minister 
throughout  his  whole  ministerial  life,  by  any  means. 

The  same  Student.  —  I  simply  brought  up  his  name  in  this  con- 
nection to  show  the  difficulty  there  is  connected  with  going 
West,  into  these  little  places,  in  regard  to  culture.  You  hold  that 
we  ought  to  have  a  certain  grace  and  ease  of  bearing.  It  seems  to 
me  that  that  kind  of  a  place  is  very  undesirable  for  such  training. 

Mr.  Beecher.  —  Then  carry  it  there.  That  should 
be  part  of  a  minister's  influence  out  there.  The  theory 
that  lies  behind  every  other  is  that  a  minister  is  a  little 
Christ,  that  he  teaches  men  about  Christ  by  acting  the 
life  of  Christ  over  again  right  before  them,  with  the 


KHETOKIGAL  DRILL  AND  GENERAL  TRAINING.  153 

same  humiliation,  self-denial,  and  self-sacrifice  that 
Jesus  Christ  displayed  when  on  earth  among  men. 
Now  this,  as -a  model,  is  so  high  that  we  shall  all  fall 
short  of  it ;  but  it  is  an  ideal  that  will  do  you  a  great 
deal  of  good  to  keep  in  your  mind,  if  you  are  going  to 
set  yourself  up  before  your  fellow-men  as  teachers  and 
preachers  of  the  life  that  is  reserved  for  God's  people. 
You  must  be  to  them  what  Christ  was,  in  his  time,  to 
those  around  him. 

Did  you  ever  read  Parkman's  History  of  the  Jesu- 
its, in  relation  to  their  missions  in  Canada  among  the 
Northern  Indians  ?  That  book  ought  to  be  read  by 
every  Protestant  clergyman,  and  especially  by  those 
who  think  there  is  no  piety  in  the  Catholic  Church. 
No  matter  how  erroneous  their  teaching  may  be,  they 
displayed  some  of  the  sweetest  and  noblest  traits  of 
self-devotion  ever  recorded  in  the  pages  of  history,  in 
their  missionary  work  among  the  Indians.  They  went 
among  them  in  their  rudest  estate,  lived  in  their  smoky 
huts,  were  derided,  hooted  at,  and  contemned,  year  after 
year.  They  were  men  of  culture  and  refinement,  and 
men  who  had  earned  at  home  a  world-wide  reputation ; 
yet  they  lived  in  these  wigwams  without  a  single  con- 
vert, and  were  willing  to  live  forty  years  there,  faithful 
in  labor,  and  then  die  without  a  sign  of  success.  They 
rebuke  us  in  our  missionary  work. 

Q.  May  it  not  be  desirable  to  spend  a  year  in  an  Eastern  parish 
before  going  West  ? 

Mr.  Beecher.  —  No,  sir  !  You  will  never  go  West 
if  you  do.  If  you  go  West  and  endure  hardships  like 
a  good  soldier,  you  will  gradually  become  worthy  to 
occupy  an  easier  post  when  you  shall  be  called  to  one, 

7* 


VII. 


EHETOEICAL  ILLUSTEATIONS. 

BELIEVE  it  was  Locke  who  inveighed 
against  Illustrations  as  the  enemies  of  truth, 
as  leading  men  astray  by  latent  or  supposed 
analogies ;  and  yet  I  apprehend  that  the 
strictest  and  most  formal  processes  of  logical  reasoning 
have  led  just  as  many  men  astray  as  ever  illustrations 
did.  You  can  perplex  people,  and  you  can,  with  great 
facility,  make  ingenious  issues  with  illustrations ;  but 
so  you  can  with  everything  else.  They  are  liable  to 
misuse,  but  no  more  than  any  other  instrument  of  per- 
^.  suasion.  If  a  man  knows  truth  and  loves  it,  if  he  is 
earnest  in  the  inculcation  of  it,  and  if  he  never  allows 
liimself  to  state  for  truth  that  which  he  does  not 
thoroughly  believe  to  be  true,  the  processes  which 
he  employs,  whether  analogies,  causal  reasoning,  or 
illustrations  the  most  poetical,  will  participate  in  the 
honesty,  of  the  man  ;  and  there  is  little  risk  that  any 
\^one  part  will  be  mistaken  more  than  any  other. 

THE  NATURE  OF  ILLUSTRATION. 

We  have  the  best  example  of  the  use  of  illustration 
in  the  history  of  the  education  of  the  world  from  time 
immemorial.    Experience  has  taught  that  not  only  are 


RHETORICAL  ILLUSTRATIONS. 


155 


persons  pleased  by  being  instructed  through  illustra- 
tion, but  that  they  are  more  readily  instructed  thus,  be- 
cause, substantially,  the  mode  in  which  we  learn  a  new 
thing  is  by  its  being  likened  to  something  w^hich  we 
already  know.  This  is  the  principle  underlying  all  true^ 
illustrations.  They  are  a  kind  of  covert  analogy,  or 
likening  of  one  thing  to  another,  so  that  obscure  things 
become  plain,  being  represented  pictorially  or  other- 
wise by  things  that  are  not  obscure  and  that  we  are 
familiar  with.  So,  then,  the  groundwork  of  all  illus- 
tration is  the  familiarity  of  your  audience  with  the 
thing  on  which  the  illustration  stands.  Now  and  then 
it  will  be  proper  to  lay  down  and  explain  with  partic- 
ularity the  fact  out  of  which  an  illustration  is  to  grow, 
and  then  to  make  the  fact  illustrate  the  truth  to  be 
made  clear.  The  speaker  will,  for  instance,  undertake 
to  explain  the-  isochronism  of  a  watch,  and  having 
done  this  so  that  the  audience  will  understand  it,  he 
may  employ  the  watch  in  that  regard  as  an  illustration. 
But,  generally,  the  subject-matter  of  an  illustration 
should  be  that  which  is  familiar  to  the  minds  of  those 
to  whom  you  are  speaking. 

It  is  not  my  province  to  go  into  the  theoretical  na- 
ture of  the  different  kinds  of  illustration,  of  metaphors, 
similes,  and  what  not ;  that  you  have  learned  in  another 
department,  both  in  your  academical  and  collegiate 
courses.  But  I  hope  to  give  you  some  practical  hints 
as  to  the  manner  of  usino*  these  thinR's. 

REASONS  FOR  ILLUSTRATIONS  IN  PREACHING, 

The  purpose  that  we  have  in  view  in  employing  an 
illustration  is  to  help  people  to  understand  more  easily 


156 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


the  things  that  we  are  teaching  them.  You  ought  to 
drive  an  audience  as  a  good  horseman  drives  a  horse 
on  a  journey,  not  with  a  supreme  regard  for  himself, 
but  in  a  way  that  will  enable  the  horse  to  achieve  his 
work  in  the  easiest  way.  An  audience  has  a  long  and 
sometimes  an  arduous  journey  when  you  are  preaching. 
Occasionally  the  way  is  pretty  steep  and  rough ;  and  it 
is  the  minister's  business,  not  so  much  to  take  care  of 
himself,  as,  by  all  the  means  in  his  power,  to  ease  the 
way  for  his  audience  and  facilitate  their  understanding. 
An  illustration  is  one  of  the  means  by  which  the  truth 
that  you  teach  to  men  is  made  so  facile  that  they  re- 
ceive it  without  effort.  I  know  that  some  men  —  amon^: 
whom,  I  think,  was  Coleridge — justify  the  obscurities 
of  their  style,  saying  that  it  is  a  good  practice  for  men 
to  be  obliged  to  dig  for  the  ideas  which  they  get.  But 
I  submit  to  you  that  working  on  Sunday  is  not  proper 
for  ordinary  people  in  church,  and  obliging  your  parish- 
ioners to  dig  and  delve  for  ideas  in  your  sermons  is 
making  them  do  the  very  work  you  are  paid  a  salary  to 
do  for  them.  Your  office  is  to  do  the  chief  part  of  the 
thinking  and  to  arrange  the  truth,  while  their  part  is  to 
experience  the  motive-power,  and  take  the  incitement 
toward  a  better  life.  In  this  work,  whatever  can  make 
your  speech  touch  various  parts  of  the  mind  in  turn 
will  be  of  great  advantage  to  your  audience,  and  will 
enable  them  to  perform  their  rugged  journey  with  less 
fatigue  and  wdth  more  pleasure.  An  illustration  is 
never  to  be  a  mere  ornament,  although  its  being  orna- 
mental is  no  objection  to  it.  If  a  man's  sermon  is  like 
a  boiled  ham,  and  the  illustrations  are  like  cloves  stuck 
in  it  afterward  to  make  it  look  a  little  better,  or  like  a 


RHETORICAL  ILLUSTRATIONS. 


157 


bit  of  celery  or  other  garnish  laid  around  on  the  edge 
for  the  mere  delectation  of  the  eye,  it  is  contemptible. 
But  if  you  have  a  real  and  good  use  for  an  illustration, 
that  has  a  real  and  direct  relation  to  the  end  you  are 
seeking,  then  it  may  be  ornamental,  and  no  fault  should 
be  found  with  it  for  that.* 

THEY  ASSIST  ARGUMENT. 

Look  a  little  at  the  result  to  be  accomplished  by 
facile  and  skillful  illustrations.  In  the  first  place,  they 
are  helpful  in  all  that  part  of  preaching  which  is  natu- 
rally based  upon  pure  reasoning,  and  which  is  some- 
what obscure  to  minds  not  trained  in  philosophical 
thought.  There  ought  to  be  in  every  sermon  something 
that  shall  task  your  audience  somewhat  as  it  tasked 
you;  otherwise  you  will  not  compass  some  of  the 
noblest  themes  that  lie  in  the  sphere  of  your  duty. 
But  pure  ratiocination  addresses  itself  to  but  a  very 
small  class  of  the  community.  There  are  very  few 
men  who  can  follow  a  close  argument  from  beginning 
to  end ;  and  those  who  can  are  trained  to  it,  it  being  an 
artificial  habit,  though,  of  course,  some  minds  are  more 
apt  for  it  than  others.  But  the  theme  must  be  very 
familiar,  and  the  argument  must  be  largely  a  statement 
of  facts,  for  most  audiences  to  understand  it.  If  you 
go  one  step  beyond  this,  into  philosophy  or  meta- 
physics, so  called,  as  you  must  do  sometimes,  you  will 
be  in  danger  of  leaving  half  your  audience  behind  you. 

Illustrations,  while  they  make  it  easier  for  all,  are 
absolutely  the  only  means  by  which  a  large  part  of 
,  your  audience  will  be  able  to  understand  at  all  the 


158 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


abstruse  processes  of  reasoning.  For  a  good,  compact 
argument,  without  illustrations,  is  very  much  like  the 
old-fashioned  towers  that  used  to  be  built  before  artil- 
lery was  invented ;  they  were  built  strong,  of  stone,  all 
the  way  up  above  a  ladder's  reach  without  a  door  or  a 
wdndow-slit.  The  first  apartment  was  so  liigh  that  it 
was  safe  from  scaling,  and  then  came  a  few  windows, 
and  very  narrow  ones  at  that.  Sucli  were  good  places 
for  beleaguered  men,  but  they  were  very  poor  places  to 
bring  up  a  family  in,  where  tliere  were  no  windows  to 
let  in  the  light. 

Now  an  illustration  is  a  window  in  an  argument, 
and  lets  in  light.    You  may  reason  without  an  illustra- 

X'  tion ;  but  where  you  are  employing  a  process  of  pure 
reasoning  and  have  arrived  at  a  conclusion,  if  you  can 
then  by  an  illustration  flash  back  light  upon  what  you 
have  said,  you  will  bring  into  the  minds  of  your  au- 
dience a  realization  of  your  argument  that  they  cannot 

\^get  in  any  other  way.  I  have  seen  an  audience,  time 
and  again,  follow  an  argument,  doubtfully,  laboriously, 
almost  suspiciously,  and  look  at  one  another,  as  much 
as  to  say,  "  Is  he  going  right  ? "  —  until  the  place  is 
arrived  at,  where  the  speaker  says,  "It  is  like  —  "  and 
then  they  listen  eagerly  for  what  it  is  like ;  and  when 
some  apt  illustration  is  thrown  out  before  them,  there 
is  a  sense  of  relief,  as  though  they  said,  ''Yes,  he  is 
right."  If  you  have  cheated  them,  so  much  the  worse 
for  you ;  but  if  your  illustrations  are  as  true  as  your 
argument,  and  your  argument  true  as  the  truth  itself, 
then  you  have  helped  them  a  great  deal.  So  that,  as  a 
mere  matter  of  help  to  reason,  illustrations  are  of  vast 
utility  in  speaking  to  an  audience. 


KHETOKICAL  ILLUSTKATIONS. 


159 


THEY  HELP  HEARERS  TO  REMEMBER. 

Then  they  are  a  very  great  help  in  carrying  away 
and  remembering  the  things  your  audience  have  heard 
from  you ;  because  it  is  true  from  childhood  up  (and 
woe  be  to  that  man  out  of  whom  the  child  has  died 
entirely  ! )  that  we  remember  pictures  and  parables  and 
fables  and  stories.  Now,  if  in  your  discourses,  w^hen 
taking  a  comprehensive  view  of  truth,  you  illustrate 
each  step  by  an  appropriate  picture,  you  will  find  that 
the  plain  people  of  your  congregation  wiR  go  away, 
remembering  every  one  of  your  illustrations.  If  they 
are  asked,  "Well,  what  was  tlie  illustration  for?"  they 
will  stop  and  consider :  What  was  he  saying  then  ? " 
They  will  fish  for  it,  and  will  generally  get  the  sub- 
stance of  it.  0,  it  was  this  ;  he  was  proA'ing  so  and 
so,  and  then  he  illustrated  it  by  this."  They  will 
remember  the  picture  ;  and,  if  they  are  questioned,  the 
picture  will  bring  back  the  truth  to  them ;  and  after 
that  they  will  remember  both  together.  Whereas  all 
except  the  few  logically  trained  minds  w^ould  very  soon 
have  forgotten  what  you  had  discoursed  upon,  if  you 
had  not  thus  suitably  seasoned  it. 

Your  illustrations  will  be  the  salt  that  will  preserve 
your  teachings,  and  men  will  remember  them. 

THEY  STIMULATE  IMAGINATION. 

The  effect  of  illustrations  upon  ideality  is  very  great. 
They  bring  into  play  the  imaginative  faculty,  which  is 
only  another  name  for  ideality.  The  sense  of  the  in- 
visible and  of  the  beautiful  ai'c  combined  in  ideality. 
Now  all  great  truth  is  beautiful.    It  carries  in  it  ele- 


160 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


ments  of  taste  and  fitness.  The  beauty  of  holiness 
we  find  spoken  of  in  the  Word  of  God,  and  this  is  a 
beauty  that  does  not  belong  to  anything  material.  God 
is  transcendently  a  lover  of  beauty,  and  all  the  issues 
of  the  Divine  Soul  are,  if  we  could  see  them  as  he 
sees  them,  beautiful,  just  as  self-denial  and  love  are 
beautiful,  and  as  purity  and  truth  and  all  good  things 
are  beautiful. 

It  is  not,  therefore,  in  the  interest  of  truth  that  a 
man  should  sift  it  down  to  the  merest  bare  nuggets  of 
statement  that  it  is  susceptible  of ;  and  this  is  not  best 
for  an  audience.  It  is  best  that  a  truth  should  have 
argument  to  substantiate  it,  and  analysis  and  close 
reasoning ;  yet  when  you  come  to  give  it  to  an  audi- 
ence you  should  clothe  it  with  flesh,  so  that  it  shall  be 
^^fit  for  their  understandings.  In  no  other  way  can  you 
so  stir  up  that  side  of  the  mind  to  grasp  your  state- 
ments and  arguments  easily,  and  prepare  it  to  remember 
them.  You  cannot  help  your  audience  in  any  other 
way  so  well  as  by  keeping  alive  in  them  the  sense  of 
the  imagination,  and  making  the  truth  palpable  to 
them,  because  it  is  appealing  to  the  taste,  to  the  sense 
of  the  beautiful  in  imagery  as  well  as  to  the  sense  of 
truth. 

THE  ART  OF  RESTING  AUDIENCES. 

It  is  a  great  art  to  know  how  to  preach  as  long  as 
you  want  to,  or  have  to,  and  yet  not  tire  your  audience, 
especially  where  you  have  been  preaching  many  years 
in  the  same  place.  For  my  own  part  I  do  not  think 
that  a  very  long  sermon  is  adapted  to  edification ;  but 
a  man  ought  to  be  able  to  preach  an  hour,  and  to  hold 


RHETORICAL  ILLUSTRATIONS. 


161  ^ 


his  audience  too.  He  cannot  do  it,  however,  if  his 
sermon  is  a  monotone,  either  in  voice  or  thought.  He 
cannot  do  it  unless  he  is  interesting.  He  cannot 
possibly  hold  his  people  unwearied,  when  they  have 
become  accustomed  to  his  voice,  his  manner,  and  his 
thoughts,  unless  he  moves  through  a  very  considerable  ^ 
scale,  up  and  down,  resting  them  ;  in  other  words, 
changing  the  faculties  that  he  is  addressing.  For  inA^ 
stance,  you  are  at  one  time,  by  statements  of  fact, 
engaging  the  perceptive  reason,  as  a  phrenologist  would 
say.  You  soon  pass,  by  a  natural  transition,  to  the  * 
relations  that  exist  between  facts  and  statements,  and 
you  are  then  addressing  another  audience,  namely,  the 
reflective  faculties  of  your  people.  And  when  you 
have  concluded  an  argument  upon  that,  and  have 
flashed  an  illustration  that  touches  and  wakes  up  their 
fancy  and  imagination,  you  are  bringing  in  still  another 
audience,  —  the  ideal  or  imaginative  one.  And  now,  if 
out  of  these  you  express  a  sweet  wine  that  goes  to  the 
emotions  and  arouses  their  feelings,  so  that  one  and 
another  in  the  congregation  wipes  his  eyes,  and  the 
proud  man,  that  does  not  want  to  cry,  blows  his  nose, 
—  what  have  you  done  ?  You  have  relieved  the  weari- 
ness of  your  congregation  by  enabling  them  to  listen 
with  different  parts  of  their  minds  to  what  you  have ^ 
been  saying.  * 
If  I  were  to  stand  here  on  one  leg  for  ten  minutes,  I 
should  be  very  grateful  if  I  were  permitted  to  stand  on 
the  other  a  little  while.  If  I  stood  on  both  of  them, 
perfectly  erect,  I  should  be  glad  to  have  the  opportu- 
nity of  resting  more  heavily  on  one,  and  taking  an  easy 
position.    In  other  words,  there  is  nothing  that  tires  a 


162 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


man  so  much  as  standing  in  one  posture,  stock  still. 
By  preaching  to  different  parts  of  the  minds  of  your 
audience,  one  part  rests  the  others ;  and  persons  not^ 
wearied  out  will  listen  to  long  sermons  and  think  them 
very  short.  It  is  a  good  thing  for  a  man  to  preach  an 
hour,  and  Iiave  his  people  say,  Why,  you  ought  not 
to  have  stopped  for  an  hour  yet."  That  is  a  compli- 
ment that  you  will  not  get  every  day,  and  you  ought  to 
be  very  grateful  when  you  do  get  it. 

ILLUSTRATIONS  PROVIDE  FOR  VARIOUS  HEARERS. 

Tlie  relation  of  illustrations  to  a  mixed  audience  is 
another  point  which  deserves  careful  consideration.  I 
have  known  ministers  wlio  always  unconsciously  sifted 
their  audience,  and  preached  to  nothing  but  the  bolted 
wheat.  Now,  you  have  got  a  little  fine  flour  in  your 
congregation,  and  more  poor  flour ;  then  you  have  the 
Graham  flour,  which  is  the  wheat  ground  up  husk 
and  all ;  and  then  you  have  all  the  unground  wheat, 
and  all  the  straw,  and  all  the  stubble.  You  are  just  as 
nmch  bound  to  take  care  of  the  bottom  as  you  are  of 
the  top.  True,  it  is  easier,  after  you  have  fallen  into 
the  habit  of  doing  it,  to  preach  to  those  people  who 
appreciate  your  better  efforts.  It  is  easier  for  you  to 
preach  so  that  the  household  of  cultured  and  refined 
people  will  love  to  sit  down  and  talk  with  you  on  this 
subtle  feeling,  and  about  that  wonderfi^l  idea  you  got 
from  the  German  poet,  and  so  on.  But  ftiat  is  self-in- 
dulgence, half  the  time,  on  the  part  of  a  pastor.  He 
follows  the  path  that  he  likes,  the  one  in  which  he  ex- 
cels, and  he  is  not  thinking  of  providing  for  the  great 
masses  that  are  under  his  care. 


RHETORICAL  ILLUSTRATIONS. 


163 


You  are  bound  to  see  that  everybody  gets  something 
every  ti7ne.  There  ought  not  to  be  a  five-year-old  child 
that  shall  go  home  without  something  that  pleases  and 
instructs  him. 

How  are  you  going  to  do  that  ?  I  know  of  no  othep 
way  than  by  illustration. 

I  have  around  my  pulpit,  and  sometimes  crowding 
upon  the  platform,  a  good  many  of  the  boys  and  girls 
of  the  congregation.  I  notice  that,  during  the  gcMeral 
statements  of  the  sermon  and  the  exegetical  parts  of 
it,  introducing  the  main  discourse,  the  children  are 
playing  with  each  other.  One  will  push  a  hymn-book 
or  a  hat  toward  the  otlier,  and  they  will  set  each  other 
laughing.  That  which  ought  not  to  be  done  is,  with 
children,  very  funny  and  amusing.  By  and  by  I  have 
occasion  to  use  an  illustration,  and  I  happen  to  turn 
round  and  look  at  the  children,  and  not  one  of  them  is 
playing,  but  they  are  all  looking  up  with  interest  de- 
picted on  their  faces.  I  did  not  think  of  them  in 
making  it,  perhaps,  but  I  saw,  when  the  food  fell  out  in 
that  way,  that  even  the  children  were  fed  too.  You  will 
observe  that  the  children  in  the  congregation  will 
usually  know  perfectly  well  whether  there  is  anything 
in  the  sermon  for  them  or  not.  There  always  ought  to 
be,  and  there  is  no  way  in  which  you  can  prepare  a 
sermon  for  the  delectation  of  the  plain  people,  and  the 
uncultured,  and  little  children,  better  than  by  making 
it  attractive  and  instructive  with  illustrations.  It  is  al- 
ways the  best  method  to  adopt  with  a  mixed  audience. 

And  that  is  the  kind  of  audience  for  whicli  you  must 
prepare  yourselves,  too.  It  is  only  now  and  then  that  a 
man  preaches  in  a  college  chapel,  where  all  are  students. 


164 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


You  are  going  into  parishes  where  there  are  old  and 
young  and  middle-aged  people,  where  there  are  work- 
ing men  and  men  of  leisure,  dull  men  and  sharp  men, 
practiced  worldlings,  and  spiritual  and  guileless  men ; 
in  fact,  all  sorts  of  people.  And  you  are  to  preach  so 
that  every  man  shall  have  his  portion  in  due  season, 
and  that  portion  ought  to  be  in  every  sermon,  more  or 
less.  You  will  scarcely  be  able  to  do  it  in  any  other 
way  than  by  illustration.  If  God  has  not  given  you 
the  gift  by  original  endowment,  strive  to  attain  it  by 
cultivation. 

MODES  OF  PRESENTING  ARGUMENT. 

Then  there  is  another  thing.  You  are  to  carry  the 
thoughts  in  your  sermon  as  the  air  or  theme  is  carried 
in  some  musical  compositions.  Certain  of  the  finest 
chorals  will  have  the  air  carried  throughout,  sometimes 
by  the  soprano,  sometimes  by  the  contralto,  sometimes 
by  the  tenor,  and  sometimes  by  the  bass.  So  with  your 
argument ;  it  must  be  borne  by  different  parts  of  your 
sermon.  Sometimes  it  must  be  put  forward  by  an 
illustration,  sometimes  by  an  appeal  to  the  feelings, 
sometimes  by  a  process  of  reasoning,  and  sometimes 
by  the  imagination.  Your  argument  is  not  to  be  all 
one  stereotyped  expression  of  thought. 

Frequently  a  speaker  will  make  a  statement,  and 
then  laboriously  lay  out  the  track  from  that  statement 
clear  over  to  the  next  point,  thus  using  up  precious 
time.  But  there  is  such  a  thing  as  striking  at  once  to 
a  man's  conscience  by  bounding  over  the  whole  logical 
process,  abbreviating  both  space  and  time,  and  gaining 
conviction. 


RHETORICAL  ILLUSTRATIONS. 


165 


What  do  you  want  ?    You  do  not  want  an  argumentV^ 
for  the  sake  of  an  argument.    You  do  not  want  a  ser-  ^ 
mon  that  is  as  perfect  a  machine  as  a  machine  can  be,  J 
unless  it  does  something.    You  want  the  people  ;  and 
the  shortest  and  surest  way  to  get  them  is  the  best  way./^ 
AVhen  you  are  preaching  a  sermon  which  has  been  pre- 
pared with  a  great  deal  of  care,  and  are  laying  down 
the  truth  with  forcible  arguments,  you  will  often  find 
that  you  are  losing  your  hold  on  the  attention  of  your 
people  by  continuing  in  that  direction.    But  coming 
to  a  fortunate  point,  strike  out  an  illustration  which 
arouses  and  interests  them,  —  leave  the  track  of  your 
argument,  and  never  mind  what  becomes  of  your  elab- 
orate sermon,  and  you  will  see  the  heavy  and  uninter- 
ested eyes  lighting  up  again.    "But,"  you  say,  "that  ^ 
will  make  my  sermon  unsymmetrical."     Well,  were 
you  called  to  preach  for  the  sake  of  the  salvation  of 
sermons  ?    J ust  follow  the  stream,  and  use  the  bait 
they  are  biting  at,  and  take  no  heed  of  your  sermon. 

You  will  fi'nd  it  almost  impossible  to  carry  forward 
the  demonstration  of  a  truth  in  one  straight  course  and 
yet  make  it  real  to  a  general  audience.  You  must  vary\ 
your  method  constantly,  and  at  the  same  time  through 
it  all  you  can  carry  the  burden  of  your  discourse  so 
that  it  shall  be  made  clear  to  the  whole  of  your 
audience.  An  argument  may  as  well  go  forward  by 
illustration  as  by  abstract  statement;  sometimes  it/ 
will  go  better. 

ILLUSTRATIONS  BRIDGE  DIFFICULT  PLACES. 

Then  there  is  another  element  for  you  to  consider. 
Illustrations  are  invisible  tactics.    A  minister  often 


166 


LECTURES  OK  PREACHING. 


Iiovers  between  the  "  ought  to  do,"  and  the  how  to 
do."  He  knows  there  is  a  subject  that  ought  to  be 
preached  about ;  and  yet,  if  he  should  deliberately 
preach  on  that  topic,  everybody  would  turn  around  and 
look  at  Mr.  A.,  who  is  the  very  embodiment  of  that 
special  vice  or  fault  or  excellence. 

There  are  many  very  important  themes  which  a  min- 
ister may  not  desire  to  preach  openly  upon,  for  various 
reasons,  especially  if  he  wish  to  remain  in  the  parish. 
But  there  are  times  when  you  can  attain  your  object 
by  an  illustration  pointed  at  the  topic,  without  indicat- 
ing whom  you  are  hitting,  but  continuing  your  sermon 
as  though  you  were  utterly  unconscious  of  the  effect 
of  your  blow. 

When  I  was  settled  at  Indianapolis,  nobody  was  al- 
lowed to  say  a  word  on  the  subject  of  slavery.  They 
were  all  red-hot  out  there  then ;  and  one  of  the  Elders 
said,  "  If  an  abolitionist  comes  here,  I  will  head  a  mob 
to  put  him  down.*'  I  was  a  young  preacher.  I  had 
some  pluck  ;  and  I  felt,  and  it  grew  in  me,  that  that 
was  a  subject  that  ought  to  be  preached  upon  ;  but  I 
knew  that  just  as  sure  as  I  preached  an  abolition  ser- 
mon they  would  blow  me  up  sky  high,  and  my  useful- 
ness in  that  parish  would  be  gone.  Yet  I  was  deter- 
mined they  should  hear  it,  first  or  last.  The  question 
was,  "  How  shall  I  do  it  ?  "  I  recollect  one  of  the  ear- 
liest efforts  I  made  in  that  direction  was  in  a  sermon 
on  some  general  topic.  It  was  necessary  to  illustrate 
a  point,  and  I  did  it  by  picturing  a  father  ransoming  his 
son  from  capti^dty  among  the  Algerines,  and  glorying 
in  his  love  of  liberty  and  his  fight  against  bondage. 
They  all  thought  I  was  going  to  apply  it  to  slavery,  but 


RHETOKIGAL  ILLUSTRATIONS. 


167 


I  did  not.  I  applied  it  to  my  subject,  and  it  passed 
off ;  and  tliey  all  drew  a  long  breath. 

It  was  not  long  before  I  had  another  illustration 
from  that  quarter.  And  so,  before  I  had  been  there  a 
year,  I  had  gone  over  all  the  sore  spots  of  slavery,  in 
illustrating  the  subjects  of  Christian  experience  and 
doctrine.    It  broke  the  ice. 

You  may  say  that  that  was  not  the  most  honorable 
way,  and  that  it  was  a  weakness.  It  may  have  been 
so ;  but  I  conquered  them  by  that  very  weakness. 

If  you  find  that  it  is  necessary  to  do  a  thing,  make 
up  your  mind  to  do  it.  If  you  cannot  accomplish  it  in 
the  very  best  way,  do  it  by  the  next  best,  and  so  on  ; 
but  see  to  it  that  it  is  clone  by  the  best  means  at  your 
command.  Go  to  the  bottom  of  it,  and  work  at  it  until 
you  attain  the  desired  result. 

Thus,  in  using  an  illustration  pointed  at  a  certain 
fault  or  weakness  among  your  people,  as  I  have  done 
a  thousand  times  (and  I  speak  within  bounds),  never 
let  it  be  known  that  you  are  aiming  at  any  particular 
individual.  Sometimes  a  person  will  say  to  me,  "  Tliere 
is  great  distress  in  such  a  family,  and  they  will  be  in 
your  church ;  can't  you  say  something  that  will  be 
useful  to  them  ? "  If  I  were  to  bring  that  case 
right  before  the  congregation,  in  all  its  personal  details, 
it  would  scandalize  the  church,  and  repel  the  very 
people  whom  I  wanted  to  help.  But  suppose,  while  I 
am  preaching,  I  imagine  a  case  of  difference  between 
husband  and  wife,  who  are,  perhaps,  hard,  suspicious, 
and  unforgiving  tow^ard  each  other,  and  I  take  the 
subject  of  God's  forgiveness,  and  illustrate  it  by  the 
conduct  of  two  couples,  one  of  which  stands  on  a  high 


168 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


and  noble  plane,  and  the  other  on  a  low,  selfish  plane. 
They  do  not  suppose  that  I  know  anything  about  their 
difficulty,  because,  when  I  am  hitting  a  man  with  an 
illustration,  I  never  look  at  him.  But  such  a  man  or 
woman  will  go  home,  and  say,  Why,  if  somebody  had 
been  telling  him  of  my  case,  he  could  not  have  hit  it 
more  exactly."  They  take  it  to  heart,  and  it  is  blessed 
unto  them.    I  have  seen  multitudes  of  such  cases. 

You  may  go  down  to  the  brook  under  the  willows 
and  angle  for  the  trout  that  everybody  has  been  trying 
to  catch,  but  in  vain.  You  go  splashing  and  tearing 
along,  throwing  in  your  pole,  line  and  all.  Do  you 
think  you  can  catch  him  that  way  ?  No,  indeed  ;  you 
must  begin  afar  off  and  quietly;  if  need  be,  drawing 
yourself  along  on  the  grass,  and  perhaps  even  on  your 
belly,  until  you  come  where  through  the  quivering 
leaves  you  see  the  flash  of  the  sun,  and  then  slowly 
and  gently  you  throw  your  line  around,  so  that  the 
fly  on  its  end  falls  as  light  as  a  gossamer  upon  the 
placid  surface  of  the  brook.  The  trout  will  think, 
"That  is  not  a  bait  thrown  to  catch  me;  there  is 
nobody  there,"  and  he  rises  to  the  fly,  takes  it,  and  you 
take  him. 

So  there  are  thousands  of  persons  in  the  world  that 
you  will  take  if  they  do  not  know  that  you  are  after 
them,  but  whom  you  could  not  touch  if  they  suspected 
your  purpose.  Illustrations  are  invaluable  for  this 
kind  of  work,  and  there  is  nothing  half  so  effective. 

THEY  EDUCATE  THE  PEOPLE. 

I  notice  that  in  a  prayer-meeting  which  has  grown 
up  under  a  minister  who  illustrates,  all  the  members  of 


RHETORICAL  ILLUSTRATIONS. 


169 


the  church  illustrate  too.  They  all  begin  to  see  visions, 
and  to  catch  likenesses  and  resemblances.  This  becomes 
a  habit,  and  it  is  to  them  a  pathfinder  or  a  starfinder, 
as  it  were.  It  leads  men  to.  look  at  truth,  not  only  in 
one  aspect,  but  in  all  its  bearings,  and  to  make  analo- 
gies and  illustrations  for  themselves,  and  thus  brings 
them  into  the  truth.  By  this  means  you  bring  up  your 
congregation  to  understand  the  truth  more  easily  than 
you  would  by  any  other  method. 

NECESSITY  OF  VARIETY. 

But  to  continue  illustrations  for  any  considerable 
time  you  must  draw  them  from  various  sources.  To 
do  this  you  must  study  the  natural  world,  the  different 
phases  of  human  society,  and  the  life  of  the  household, 
in  moral  colors.  These  are  inexhaustible  sources  from 
which  to  draw  the  needful  instruction. 

If  you  are  preaching  to  pedants,  you  may  properly 
enough  illustrate  by  the  ancient  classics  ;  but  if  you 
are  preaching  to  common  people  you  must  not  confine 
yourself  to  that  coarse,  although  it  is  allowable,  once 
in  a  while,  to  use  some  illustration  drawn  from  the 
heroes  of  ancient  history  and  mythology.  But  what 
may  be  called  scholarly  illustrations  are  not  generally 
good  for  the  common  people.  They  may  serve  to  im- 
press the  more  ignorant  with  a  sense  of  your  knowl- 
edge, but  that  is  not  what  you  are  called  to  preach  foT. 
That  would  be  a  poor  business. 

In  the  development  of  this  faculty  of  illustration  it 
is  necessary  to  know  the  philosophy  of  it.  All  illus- 
trations, to  be  apt,  should  touch  your  people  where  their 
level  is.    I  do  not  know  that  this  art  can  be  learned ; 


170 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


but  I  may  suggest  that  it  is  a  good  thing,  in  looking 
over  an  audience,  to  cultivate  the  habit  of  seeing  illus-  . 
trations  in  them.  If  I  see  a  seaman  sitting  among  my 
audience,  I  do  not  say  "  I  will  use  him  as  a  figure,"  and 
apply  it  personally ;  but  out  of  him  jumps  an  illus- 
tration from  the  sea,  and  it  conies  to  seek  me  out.  If 
there  be  a  watchmaker  present  that  I  happen  to  recog- 
nize, my  next  illustration  will  very  likely  be  from 
horology;  though  he  will  be  utterly  unconscious  of  the 
use  I  have  made  of  liim.  Tlien  I  see  a  school-mistress, 
and  my  next  illustration  will  be  out  of  scliool-teaching. 
Thus,  where  your  audience  is  known  to  you,  the  illus- 
tration ought  not  simply  to  meet  your  wants  as  a 
speaker,  but  it  should  meet  the  wants  of  your  congrega- 
tion, it  should  be  a  help  to  them. 

HOMELY  ILLUSTRATIONS. 

You  must  not  be  afraid  to  illustrate  truths  in  an  un- 
dignified manner.  Young  gentlemen,  where  you  can- 
not help  yourselves,  you  have  a  right  to  be  dignified ; 
but  this  cant  and  talk  about  dignity  is  the  most  shabby 
and  miserable  pretense  of  pride  and  of  an  artificial 
culture.  There  is  nothing  so  dignified  as  a  man  in^--^ 
earnest.  It  is  that  which  approves  itself  to  the  moral 
consciousness  of  every  hearer.  If,  besides  that,  you 
are  naturally  graceful  and  handsome,  and  your  thoughts 
flow  in*  a  certain  high  order,  so  much  the  better ;  but 
if  they  do  not,  and  you  assume  the  pretense  of  it,  and 
put  on  the  mask  of  these  things  without  having  the 
inward  soul,  you  are  base. 

Now,  in  respect  to  truth,  do  not  be  ashamed  to  ex- 
plain it  by  homely  illustrations.    Do  not  be  ashamed 


RHETORICAL  ILLUSTRATIONS. 


171 


to  talk  to  the  miller  about  his  mill,  or  to  the  plowman 
about  his  plow,  and  about  the  grubs  that  are  under  it, 
and  about  every  part  of  it.  If  you  are  going  to  be  a 
master  in  your  business,  you  must  know  about  all  these 
things  yourself.  Having  eyes,  you  must  see ;  having 
ears,  you  must  hear;  and  having  a  heart,  you  must 
understand.  A  minister  ought  to  be  the  best  informed 
man  on  the  face  of  the  earth.  He  ought  to  see  every- 
thing, inquire  about  everything,  and  be  interested  in 
everything.  You  may  ask,  "  Shall  I  treasure  up  illus- 
trations ? "  Yes  ;  if  that  is  your  way,  you  may  do  so  ; 
,if  not,  you  will  very  soon  find  it  out.  You  must  know 
what  is  the  best  method  for  yourself.  You  cannot 
pattern  on  anybody  else.  Imitations  are  always  poor 
stuff.  You  must  find  out  tlie  thing  meant  for  you, 
and  then  do  the  best  you  can.  You  must  be  faithful 
in  the  place  where  God  put  you,  and  for  which  you  are 
equipped.  A  minister  is  not  a  man  to  know  books 
alone.  He  must  know  books,  and  study  them  pro- 
foundly. You  must  be  conversant  with  the  thoughts^ 
and  deeds  of  the  noble  minds  of  every  age  of  the 
world.  There  is  much  for  you  in  history  and  in  libra- 
ries, in  the  discourse  of  your  equals,  in  the  conversa- 
tion of  scholarly  men.  But  this  fact  ought  you  not  to 
overlook  nor  to  neglect,  that  you  are  God's  shepherds, 
for  the  sheep  and  for  the  lambs  as  w^ell.  You  ought  to 
know  about  the  woman's  spinning-w^heel,  about  the 
weaver's  loom  and  every  part  of  it.  You  ought  to 
know  about  the  gardener's  thoughts,  his  ambitions  and 
feelings.  You  ought  to  know  what  is  done  in  the  barn, 
in  the  cellar,  in  the  vineyard,  and  everywhere.  You 
ought  to  know  and  understand  a  naturalist's  enthusiasm 


172 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


when  he  finds  a  new  flower  or  a  new  bug,  —  that  ecstasy 
is  almost  like  a  heaven  of  heavens  to  the  apocalyptic 
John!  You  must  study  men,  women,  and  children, 
their  weaknesses  and  their  strong  sides.  You  must 
live  among  men,  and  be  sentient  and  conscious  of  what 
they  are,  and  what  they  think  about.  And  when  you 
come  to  preach,  it  is  for  you  to  draw  an  illustration  in 
the  range  where  your  hearers  live,  whether  it  be  high 
or  low;  and  you  must  change  them  continually,  pro- 
viding now  for  some,  and  now  for  others.  But  they 
must  always  be  on  a  level  with  your  audience,  so  that 
they  will  surge  back  and  draw  your  hearers  to  you.  , 
You  must  bring  people  to  yourself,  and  not  wait  for 
them  to  come.  As  well  might  a  new  bucket  of  white 
oak,  newly  hooped,  —  the  very  best  bucket  to  be  had, — 
expect  that  water  shall  come  up  from  the  well  to  its 
level,  while  it  simply  hangs  over  the  well-curb ;  it 
must  go  down  to  the  water  and  bring  it  up.  You 
must  go  down  to  your  people.  There  must  be  a  place 
where  your  yarn  is  joined  on  to  their  yarn,  and  it  must 
be  joined  in  one  common  thread. 

ILLUSTRATIONS  MUST  BE  APT. 

Let  me  say  to  you,  that,  in  using  illustrations,  you 
must  be  sure  to  make  them  always  apposite.  If  you 
should  undertake  to  "  work  ship  "  in  an  audience  where 
there  is  a  good  old  sea-captain,  and  you  should  make  a 
mistake,  and  speak  as  though  you  thought  the  taffrail 
w^as  the  rudder,  he  would  feel  contempt  for  you.  If  I 
should  hear  a  politician  say  that  Job  said,  "  Every  tub 
must  stand  upon  its  own  bottom,"  I  should  laugh  at 


RHETORICAL  ILLUSTRATIONS. 


173 


him,  and  his  illustration  and  quotation  would  not  do 
me  much  good.  When  you  are  talking  about  matters 
that  men  know  about,  you  must  know  just  as  much  as 
they  do.  Never  let  a  man  in  your  congregation  detect 
you  in  an  inaccuracy  if  you  can  help  it.  If  you  speak 
about  making  wine,  be  sure  you  know  about  making  it. 
(To  do  that,  it  is  not  necessary  that  you  should  know 
how  to  drink  it,  however !) 
Therefore,  always  be  learning. 

HOW  TO  GET  INFORMATION. 

There  are  two  points  about  learning.  In  the  first 
place,  never  ask  a  question,  if  you  can  help  it ;  and 
secondly,  never  let  a  thing  go  unknown  for  the  lack  of 
asking  a  question,  if  you  cannot  help  it.  Think  it  out 
first.  Dig  it  out,  study  it,  go  around  it,  question 
yourself,  and  get  it  out.  If  you  really  cannot,  then 
turn  and  ask  somebody.  See  everything,  and  see  it 
right,  and  use  it  as  you  go  along. 

A  man's  study  should  be  everywhere,  —  in  the  house, 
in  the  street,  in  the  fields,  and  in  the  busy  haunts  of 
men.  You  see  a  bevy  of  children  in  the  window,  and 
you  can  form  them  into  a  picture  in  your  mind.  You 
may  see  the  nurse,  and  the  way  she  is  dressed.  You 
try  to  describe  it.  You  look  again,  and  make  your- 
self master  of  the  details.  By  and  by  it  will  come  up 
to  you  again  itself,  and  you  will  be  able  to  make  an 
accurate  picture  of  it,  having  made  your  observation 
accurate.  Little  by  little,  this  habit  will  grow,  until 
by  and  by,  in  later  life,  you  will  find  that  you  command 
respect  by  your  illustrations  just  as  much  as  by  argu- 
ments and  analogies. 


174 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


ILLUSTRATIONS  MUST  BE  PROMPT. 

Then,  again,  while  elaborate  allegories  and  fables  are 
very  good  things,  and  may  be  used  with  discretion, 
illustrations,  so  called,  ought  always  to  be  clean,  accu- 
rate, and  qidck.  Do  not  let  them  dawdle  on  your 
hands.  There  is  nothing  that  tires  an  audience  so 
much  as  when  they  have  to  think  faster  than  you  do. 
You  have  got  to  keep  ahead  of  them.  Do  you  know 
what  it  is  to  walk  behind  slow  people  and  tread  on 
their  heels  ?  How  it  tires  and  vexes  one  !  You  know 
how  people  are  vexed  with  a  preacher  who  is  slow  and 
dilatory,  and  does  not  get  along.  He  tires  people  out, 
for  though  he  may  have  only  six  or  seven  words  of  his 
sentence  completed,  they  know  the  whole  of  it ;  and 
what  is  the  use,  then,  of  his  uttering  the  rest? 

With  illustrations,  there  should  be  energy  and  vigor 
in  their  delivery.  Let  them  come  with  a  crack,  as 
w^hen  a  driver  would  stir  up  his  team.  The  horse  does 
not  know  anything  about  it  until  the  crack  of  the 
whip  comes.  So  with  an  illustration.  Make  it  sharp. 
Throw  it  out.  Let  it  come  better  and  better,  and  the 
best  at  the  last,  and  then  be  done  wdth  it. 

THE  HABIT  OF  ILLUSTRATING. 

In  regard  to  the  gift  of  illustrating,  and  the  educa- 
tion of  it,  it  is  the  same  as  with  all  other  things.  Some 
men  are  born  mathematicians ;  and  whatever  they  do, 
that  will  be  the  strongest  impulse  in  their  intellectual 
natures.  Other  men  are  a  little  less  endowed  in  that 
direction,  and  others  still  less;  but  almost  everybody 
has  enough  of  the  arithmetical  faculty  on  which  to 


RHETORICAL  ILLUSTRATIONS. 


175 


build  an  education.  It  is  so  also  in  poetry  and  in 
music.    You  are  educable. 

In  regard  to  illustration,  you  will  find  persons  who 
are  instinctively  given  to  it.  Many  of  you  will  find  it 
natural  to  you.  But  do  not  be  discouraged,  even  when 
it  is  natural,  if  you  do  not  at  once  succeed.  Why 
should  you  succeed  before  you  learn  the  rudiments  of 
your  art  ?  Why  should  you  be  able  to  run  before  you 
can  walk  ?  Practice  by  yourselves  to  imaginary  audi- 
ences ;  make  illustrations  and  use  them ;  train  your- 
selves to  it.  If  once  or  twice  on  every  Sabbath  day 
you  can  make  a  fitting  illustration  and  see  that  you 
have  gained  ground  by  it,  take  courage,  and  you  will 
improve  day  by  day  and  year  by  year. 

I  can  say,  for  your  encouragement,  that  while  illus- 
trations are  as  natural  to  me  as  breathing,  I  use  fifty 
now  to  one  in  the  early  years  of  my  ministry.  For 
the  first  six  or  eight  years,  perhaps,  they  were  com- 
paratively few  and  far  apart.  But  I  developed  a  ten- 
dency that  was  latent  in  me,  and  educated  myself  in 
that  respect ;  and  that,  too,  by  study  and  practice,  by 
hard  thought,  and  by  a  great  many  trials,  both  with 
the  pen,  and  extemporaneously  by  myself,  when  I  was 
walking  here  and  there.  Whatever  I  have  gained  in 
that  direction  is  largely  the  result  of  education.  You 
need  not,  therefore,  be  discouraged  if  it  does  not  come 
to  you  immediately.  You  cannot  be  men  at  once  in 
these  things.  This  world  is  God's  anvil,  and  whatever 
is  fit  for  the  battle  has  been  beaten  out  on  that  anvil, 
and  it  has  felt  the  fire  before  it  has  felt  the  blow.  So 
that  whatever  you  would  get  in  this  world  that  is 
worth  having,  you  must  work  for.    Do  not  be  cast 


176 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


down.  Be  brave,  industrious,  disinterested,  simple, 
and  true-hearted.  Whatever  God  means  to  give  you 
for  your  usefulness  will  certainly  come  to  you. 

QUESTIONS  AND  ANSWERS. 

Q.  Do  you  think  the  use  of  these  encyclopaedias  of  illustra- 
tions is  honest? 

Mr.  Beecher.  —  Why  not  ? 

Student.  —  Because  one  ought  to  make  his  illustrations  him- 
self, I  should  say. 

Mr.  Beecher.  —  That  is  purely  a  question  with  your- 
self. If  a  man  says  he  would  rather  take  the  pains 
and  time  to  work  out  his  illustrations  himself,  he  has 
a  perfect  right  to  do  so.  It  is  just  the  same  question 
that  comes  up  in  everything  else.  "Do  you  think  a 
man  ought  to  copy  pictures,  or  to  study  from  nature  ? " 
One  school  will  tell  you  one  thing,  and  another  school 
another  thing.  It  is  simply  a  matter  of  preference.  I 
should  not  borrow  my  illustrations  a  great  while  if  I 
could  help  it;  but  if  you  find  that  you  accomplish 
your  designs  in  preaching,  and  at  the  same  time 
improve  yourself  by  practicing  in  that  way,  it  is 
allowable. 

Q.  Is  it  best  to  give  your  illustrations  extemporaneously,  even 
when  the  sermon  is  written  ? 

Mr.  Beecher.  —  Yes,  and  no.  Sometimes  it  is,  and 
sometimes  it  is  not.  Some  of  your  carefully  written- 
out  illustrations  would  die  between  your  attempting 
to  remember  and  attempting  to  originate.  There  is 
nothing  worse  than  to  get  into  the  place  where  those 
two  processes  meet.    You  will  hear  a  person  say,  "  I 


MEtOHlCAL  ILLUSTKATiONS.  177 


have  either  to  read  my  sermons  or  else  make  brief 
notes  and  not  read  at  all."  The  difficulty  is  that  if  you 
have  your  notes  well  written  out  and  then  look  up 
from  them  and  undertake  to  extemporize,  you  will  be 
extemporizing,  as  it  were,  with  one  eye,  and  thinking 
of  what  is  in  your  notes  with  the  other ;  so  that  you 
will  really  rest  on  neither,  but  go  down  between  the 
two  processes.  No  man  can  extemporize  until  he  cuts 
the  cord  that  holds  him  to  his  sermon.  You  cannot 
extemporize  while  you  are  thinking  of  anything  other 
than  the  impulse  which  is  carrying  you  on. 

Q.  Would  you  advocate  special  services  for  children,  at  times? 

Mr.  Beecher.  —  Yes.  It  is  a  very  excellent  plan 
indeed.  I  think  every  parish  should  have  a  periodical 
service  for  children.  Dr.  Storrs  has  had  a  regular 
series  of  discourses  for  his  children,  and  it  has  been 
one  of  the  most  excellent  features  of  his  ministry  in 
Brooklyn. 

Q.  About  how  much  poetry  is  necessary  to  spice  a  sermon  ? 

Mr.  Beecher.  —  Of  quotations  I  should  say,  gener- 
ally none.  Of  poetical  treatment  and  illustration,  it 
"  depends."  Poetry,  you  know,  is  not  a  thing  that  you 
can  measure  and  put  in  by  quantity.  If  your  theme 
suggests  illustrations  which  are  poetical,  take  and  use 
them ;  but  to  determine  that  you  will  have  a  definite 
quantity  of  them  will  kill  inspiration  in  the  very  egg. 

Q.  Is  there  not  danger  of  getting  into  a  loose  way  of  sermon- 
izing, by  not  preparing  your  illustrations  beforehand,  but  just 
taking  them  as  they  strike  you  in  the  pulpit  ? 

Mr.  Beecher. —  Yes  ;  and  there  is  danger  of  getting 
into  too  seve»^e  a  habit,  if  you  prepare  in  the  other  way. 

8^  I. 


178 


LECTUKP]S  ON  PREACHING. 


There  is  danger  any  way.  You  cannot  prepare  in  any 
way  so  that  you  can  say  to  yourself,  "  Now  I  am  sure 
of  success  ;  I  need  not  give  myself  any  further  respon- 
sibility." For,  if  there  is  a  working-man  on  earth,  it  is 
the  man  who  undertakes  to  preach  continually  and 
steadily  to  an  ordinary  congregation.  Let  me  say  to 
you,  gentlemen,  never  be  frightened  because  you  have 
preached  a  bad  sermon  ;  but,  at  the  same  time,  never, 
under  any  circumstances  whatever,  preach  a  bad  sermon 
on  purpose,  or  by  negligence  or  carelessness.  If  you 
are  not  in  a  good  condition  for  work,  if  you  are  sick, 
never  apologize,  but  do  the  best  you  can,  even  though 
knowing  you  are  doing  it  very  j)oorly.  That  is  not  a 
pleasant  experience,  as  I  can  bear  witness.  Preach  the 
best  you  can,  under  the  circumstances,  without  apology. 
If  you  are  preaching  to  but  six  people,  do  the  best 
thing  you  can  do.    Do  it  always  and  everywhere. 

Q.  Is  it  a  proper  thing  to  make  an  audience  laugh  by  an  illus- 
tration ? 

Mr.  Beecher.  —  Never  turn  aside  from  a  laugh  any 
more  than  you  would  from  a  cry.  Go  ahead  on  your 
Master's  business,  and  do  it  well.  And  remember  this, 
that  every  faculty  in  you  was  placed  there  by  the  dear 
Lord  God  for  his  service.  Never  try  to  raise  a  laugh 
for  a  laugh's  sake,  or  to  make  men  merry  as  a  piece 
of  sensationalism,  when  you  are  preaching  on  solemn 
things.  That  is  allowable  at  a  picnic,  but  not  in  a 
pulpit  where  you  are  preaching  to  men  in  regard  to 
God  and  their  own  destiny.  But  if  mirth  comes  up 
naturally,  do  not  stifle  it ;  strike  that  chord,  and  par- 
ticularly if  you  want  to  make  an  audience  cry.    If  I 


RHETORICAL  ILLUSTRATIONS. 


179 


can  make  them  laugh,  I  do  not  thank  anybody  for  the 
next  move ;  I  will  make  them  cry.  Did  you  ever  s^e 
a  woman  carrying  a  pan  of  milk  quite  full,  and  it  slops 
over  on  one  side,  that  it  did  not  immediately  slop  over 
on  the  other  also  ? 

Q.  If  a  man  "slops  over"  on  some  occasions,  is  he  not  liable 
to  "  slop  over  "  continually  ? 

Mr.  Beecher.  —  Not  long  in  one  place,  if  he  does  it 
continually.  If  you  take  the  liberty,  however,  from 
what  I  have  said,  to  quote  stale  jokes  ;  if  you  make 
queer  turns  because  they  will  make  people  laugh,  and 
to  show  you  have  power  over  the  congregation,  you  will 
prove  yourselves  contemptible  fellows.  But  if,  when 
yorf  are  arguing  any  question,  the  thing  comes  upon 
you  so  that  you  see  a  point  in  a  ludicrous  light,  you 
can  sometimes  flash  it  at  your  audience,  and  accomplish 
at  a  stroke  what  you  were  seeking  to  do  by  a  long  train 
of  argument,  and  that  is  entirely  allowable.  In  such 
a  case  do  not  attempt  to  suppress  laughter.  It  is  a 
part  of  the  nature  that  God  gave  us,  and  which  we 
can  use  in  his  service.  When  you  are  fighting  the 
Devil,  shoot  him  with  anything. 

Q.  Would  not  a  man,  under  such  circumstances,  be  in  danger 
of  overturning  just  what  he  was  trying  to  accomplish  ? 

Mr.  Beecher.  —  No ;  unless  he  accompanies  it  very 
poorly. 

If  a  minister  is  earnest  and  honest,  and  a  man  of 
God,  if  he  bears  about  him  the  savor  of  the  heavenly 
world  and  the  benevolence  of  this  life,  his  people  will 
know  it.  If  you  know  the  difference  between  a  man 
who  is  in  earnest  and  one  who  is  merely  playing,  do 


180 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


you  suppose  the  people  will  respond  to  the  superficial 
and  lower  qualities,  and  not  to  the  greater  and  nobler 
ones  in  a  true  preacher  ? 

Q.  How  long  would  you  advise  a  young  man  to  preach  ? 

Mr.  Beecher.  —  As  long  as  he  can  make  his  people 
take  his  sermon.  That  is  very  much  like  asking  how 
long  a  coat  you  should  have  made  for  people,  in 
general. 


VIII. 


HEALTH,  AS  RELATED   TO  PREACHING. 

HERE  has  been,  in  recent  times,  a  great 
deal  more  information  diffused  among  tlie 
common  people  on  the  subject  of  health 
than  formerly,  and  men  live  more  whole- 
somely, and  all  the  processes  of  society  are  in  better 
accordance  with  the  laws  of  life.  Men  have  more  in- 
telligent ideas  of  what  to  avoid  and  what  to  seek. 

There  is  one  relation,  however,  to  which  I  shall  more 
particularly  confine  myself  to-day,  which  has  been 
largely  left  out  of  the  popular  consideration,  and  that 
is  the  relation  of  health  to  brain-work. 

If  you  take  a  full  stem  of  wheat  in  harvest-time,  and 
sliake  out  all  the  kernels  of  wheat,  what  is  left  is  chaff 
and  straw.  So,  if  you  take  from  a  nmn  his  brain- 
power, all  that  is  left  of  him  is  chaff  and  straw ;  that 
is,  it  is  nothing  but  animal.  All  there  is  of  a  man 
lies  in  the  nerve  and  brain  power;  and  while  the 
business  of  life  is  to  take  care  of  the  bone  and  muscle, 
the  stomach,  the  liver,  the  lungs,  and  the  lieart,  that  is 
only  because  this  is  the  way  to  take  care  of  that  which 
is,  after  all,  the  sovereign,  and  for  which  all  these  other 


182 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


things  are  merely  servants  and  messengers  and  purveyors. 
It  is  the  brain-power,  or  the  mental  power  as  expressed 
through  the  brain,  that  causes  man  to  surpass  the  lower 
creations  around  liim. 

Now,  it  is  not  very  difficult  for  a  man  to  live  in  the 
enjoyment  of  good  health  who  is  born  with  a  good 
constitution,  which  he  has  not  in  youth  drained  and 
sapped,  and  who  has  come  into  a  noble  and  virtuous 
maidiood,  and  into  a  profession  that  will  keep  him 
within  proper  bounds  of  exertion.  But  you  must  re- 
member that  you  are  going  to  be  under  fire.  Let  a 
man  be  in  the  midst  of  a  desperate  naval  engagement, 
where  the  shot  and  shell  are  filling  the  air,  and  the 
splinters  flying  thick  as  hail,  he  will  find  it  is  not  so 
easy  to  pass  unscathed.  Let  a  man.  be  in  the  midst 
of  an  awakened  community,  where  all  the  members  of 
two  hundred  families  have  a  right  to  go  to  his  fire  and 
light  their  torches ;  where  he  is  obliged  to  preach 
Monday,  and  Tuesday,  and  Wednesday,  and  Thursday, 
and  Friday,  and  Saturday,  and  tw^ice  on  Sunday  ;  where 
he  is  visited  by  all ;  where  he  must  preside  at  prayer- 
meetings  and  social  gatherings  ;  and  where  he  has  to 
be  a  perpetual  fountain,  out  of  which  so  many  different 
liydrants  are  drawing  their  supplies,  —  then  to  keep 
one's  health  is  a  very  different  thing. 

There  are  few  men  in  the  ministry  who  live  at  one 
half  their  competency  or  power.  They  do  not  know 
how  to  make  their  machines  work  at  a  high  rate  of 
speed,  with  great  executive  energy,  without  damage  to 
themselves.  It  is  an  art  to  be  healthy  at  all ;  but  to 
be  healthy  when  you  are  run  at  the  top  of  your  speed 
all  the  time  is  a  great  art  indeed. 


HEALTH,  AS  KELATED  TO  PKEACHING. 


183 


WHAT  IS  HEALTH? 

Let  me  tell  you  that  when  I  speak  of  health,  I  do 
not  mean  merely  not  being  sick.  I  divide  people  into, 
first,  the  sick  folk ;  secondly,  the  not-sick  folk  ;  thirdly, 
the  almost-healthy  folk;  and  fourthly  —  and  they  are 
the  elect  —  the  folk  that  are  healthy.  What  I  mean 
by  "health"  is  such  a  feeling  or  tone  in  every  part 
of  a  man's  body  or  system  that  he  has  the  natural 
language  of  health.  What  is  the  natural  language 
of  health  ?  Look  at  four-months-old  puppies,  and  see. 
Look  at  kittens,  and  see.  Look  at  children,  from  the 
time  they  are  three  or  four  or  five  years  old.  Look  at 
young  men,  when  tliey  are  at  school  and  at  the  academy. 
They  cannot  eat  enough,  nor  holloa  enough,  nor  run 
enough,  nor  wrestle  enough.  They  are  just  full.  It 
is  buoyancy.  It  is  the  insatiable  desire  of  play  and 
of  exertion. 

The  nature  of  the  human  constitution,  in  a  state  of 
health,  is  to  be  a  creative  instrument  or  agent ;  and  the 
necessity  in  a  man  to  be  creating  outside  of  himself 
is  one  of  the  noblest  tokens  of  health.  When  one  has 
been  kept  at  work  and  under  the  yoke,  he  has  played 
off  his  surplus  energy  in  the  various  channels  of  his 
business  activities.  We  do  not  expect  a  man  to  bound 
and  caper  about,  for  the  simple  reason  that  he  has  other 
legitimate  channels  to  work  off  his  steam  in.  But  let 
him  get  a  vacation.  He  goes  to  the  White  Mountains. 
He  has  three  or  four  days  of  uncaring  rest  and  nights 
of  long  sleep,  and  then  he  awakes  to  the  stimulus  of  the 
mountains.  "  Well,"  he  says,  "  I  feel  like  a  boy  again," 
which  is  only  another  way  of  saying, I  feel  my  health." 


184 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


His  system  is  not  perverted.  He  is  rested  in  all  hi? 
parts,  and  that  vast  amount  of  energy  and  vitality 
which  he  generates,  but  which  in  the  city  was  worked 
off  in  professional  labors  and  social  relations,  is  now 
being  collected  again;  the  measure  of  the  instrument 
is  filled  and  it  pours  over.  A  man  in  health  is  a 
fountain,  and  he  flows  over  at  the  eye,  at  the  lip,  and 
all  the  time,  by  every  species  of  action  and  demonstra- 
tion. 

I  have  often  seen  what  are  called  over-shot  wheels, 
where  they  have  a  very  small  and  weak  stream.  They 
get  a  wheel  of  large  diameter,  and  the  buckets  are 
made  in  a  peculiar  form,  sloping  from  the  mouth  up. 
Then  comes  a  little  trickling  stream  which  pours  down 
into  the  big  buckets  its  slow  accumulation  of  water- 
weight,  and  it  begins  to  turn  the  wheel  very  moderately 
and  gradually,  and  so  it  goes.  That  is  about  the  con- 
dition in  which  average  men  are  working,  with  just 
enough  power  to  turn  an  over-shot  wheel.  But  if  you 
have  a  great,  full,  strong  stream,  the  mere  impact  of 
which  on  the  wheel  is  enough  to  turn  it,  then  the 
wheel  is  made  under-shot,  and  the  water  comes  dashing 
against  the  breast  and  bottom  of  it,  and  around  it  goes, 
promptly  and  rapidly.  The  miller  says,  "  What  do  I 
care  ?  I  have  got  the  whole  stream.  There  is  no  use 
in  economizing  my  water ;  I  will  let  it  flow,"  and  the 
water  runs  all  the  time.  There  are  very  few  men  that 
can  afford  to  run  on  an  under-shot  wheel.  Almost  all 
men  are  economists  of  their  resources,  because  they 
have  not  this  real  high  health* 


HEALTH,  AS  RELATED  TO  PREACHING. 


185 


HEALTH  AND  THOUGHT. 

As  to  the  direct  bearing  of  this  bodily  condition  on 
your  coming  duties,  let  me  say,  first,  men  in  a  high 
state  of  health  invariably  see  more  sharply  the  truth 
that  they  are  after.  They  see  its  relations  and  its  fit- 
ness. They  have  a  sense  of  direction,  combination, 
and  of  the  power  of  relations  of  truth  to  emotion. 
The  old-fashioned  way  of  preparing  a  sermon  was 
where  a  man  sat  down  with  his  pipe,  and  smoked  and 
"thought,"  as  he  called  it,  and  after  one  or  two  or  three 
hours,  —  his  wife  saying  to  everybody  in  the  mean 
time,  "  Dear  man,  he  is  up  stairs  studying ;  he  has  to 
study  so  hard ! "  —  in  which  he  has  been  in  a  muggy, 
fumbling  state  of  mind,  he  at  last  comes  out  with  the 
product  of  it  for  the  pulpit.  It  is  like  unleavened 
bread,  doughy,  dumpy,  and  heavy,  —  hard  to  eat,  and 
harder  to  digest.  There  has  been  nothing  put  in  it  to 
vitalize  it.  But  w^hen  a  man  is  in  a  perfect  state  of 
health,  no  matter  where  he  goes,  he  is  sensitive  to  social 
influence  and  to  social  wants.  He  discovers  men's 
necessities  instinctively.  He  is  very  quick  to  choose 
the  instrument  by  which  to  minister  to  those  neces- 
sities, so  that  when  he  goes  to  his  study  he  has  some- 
thing to  do,  and  he  knoivs  what  it  is. 

He  is  accurate  in  his  thinking.  Is  there  no  difference 
in  the  varying  moods  of  the  draughtsman  ?  Take  him 
with  a  bilious  headache.  Do  you  suppose  he  can  make 
his  strokes  so  that  every  line  of  his  drawing  shall 
express  thought  ?  Some  people  say,  "  Why,  there  are 
times  when  I  can  do  more  in  a  day  than  in  a  week  at 
other  times,"  which  is  true,  because  at  those  periods  the 


186 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


system  is  in  a  perfect  condition  of  health.  Suppose 
you  could  have  that  condition  always,  what  workers 
you  would  be  !  How  it  would  sharpen  your  compre- 
hension of  the  various  relations  of  truth,  and  with 
what  ease  could  you  see  and  handle  them  !  For  all 
these  things  are  largely  dependent  upon  health.  You 
cannot  drudge  them  out. 

Men  are  said  to  have  genius.  What  is  genius  but  a 
condition  of  fiber,  and  a  condition  of  health  in  fiber  ? 
It  is  nothing  in  the  world  but  automatic  thinking. 
And  what  is  automatic  thinking  ?  It  is  thought  that 
thinks  itself,  instead  of  being  run  up  or  worried  up  to 
think.  Whoever  thinks  without  thinking  is  in  fact 
a  genius.  In  music,  it  is  said  that  it  "makes  it- 
self." In  arithmetic  or  mechanics,  the  demonstration 
"comes"  to  you.  You  do  not  think  it  out,  except 
automatically.  Eeal  thinking  ought  to  be  automatic 
action,  and  almost  unconscious.  Under  such  circum- 
stances, your  intuitions  and  your  sudden  automatic 
thinking,  nine  times  out  of  ten,  will  be  true  ;  and 
when  you  send  slow -footed  Logic  afterward  to  meas- 
ure the  footsteps  and  the  way  over  which  your  thoughts 
have  traveled.  Logic  will  come  back  and  report, 
"Well,  I  did  not  believe  it,  but  he  was  right,  after 
all."  So,  then,  for  sharpness  and  accuracy  and  com- 
plexity of  thinking,  in  which  much  of  your. life  ought 
to  lie,  you  require  the  best  conditions  of  health  in  the 
system  by  which  you  think. 

HEALTH  IN  SPEAKING. 

The  next  step  is  where  you  come  to  speak  what  you 
have  thought.    You  know  how  beautifully  some  men 


•    HEALTH,  AS  RELATED  TO  PREACHING.  187 

write,  and  how  poorly  they  deliver;  how  well  they 
prepare  their  materials,  and  yet  their  materials  when 
prepared  are  of  no  force  whatever.  They  are  beautiful 
arrows,  —  arrows  of  silver ;  golden-tipped  are  they,  and 
winged  with  the  feathers  of  the  very  bird  of  paradise. 
But  there  is  no  bow  to  draw  the  arrows  to  the  head  and 
shoot  them  strongly  home,  and  so  they  all  fall  out  of 
the  sheath  down  in  front  of  the  pulpit  or  platform. 
People  say,  "Those  sermons  are  fit  to  be  printed,"  — 
and  they  are  fit  for  nothing  else.  They  are  essays. 
They  are  sections  of  books.  But  what  the  preacher 
w^ants  is  the  power  of  having  something  that  is  worth 
saying,  and  then  the  power  of  saying  it.  He  is  to  hold 
the  light  up  so  that  a  blind  man  cannot  help  feeling 
that  it  is  falling  on  his  orbs.  He  needs  to  put  the 
truth  in  such  a  way  that  if  a  man  were  asleep  it  would 
wake  him  up  ;  and  if  he  were  dead,  it  would  give  him 
resurrection  for  the  hour. 

A  man  that  breaks  his  backbone  every  time  he 
explodes  a  vowel,  —  how^  can  he  do  it  ? 

POPULAR  ORATORS. 

Who  are  the  speakers  that  move  the  crowd,  —  men 
after  the  pattern  of  Whitefield,  what  are  they  ?  They 
are  almost  always  men  of  very  large  physical  develop- 
ment, men  of  very  strong  digestive  powers,  and  whose 
lungs  have  great  aerating  capacity.  They  are  men  of 
great  vitality  and  recuperative  force.  They  are  men 
who,  while  they  have  a  sufficient  thought-power  to 
create  all  the  material  needed,  have  pre-eminently  the 
explosive  power  by  which  they  can  thrust  their  mate- 
rials out  at  men.    They  are  catapults,  and  men  go 


188 


LECTURES  ON  PKEACHING. 


down  before  them.  Of  course  you  will  find  men  now 
and  then,  thin  and  shrill-voiced,  w^ho  are  popular  speak- 
ers. Sometimes  men  are  organized  with  a  compact  ner- 
vous temperament  and  are  slender  framed,  while  they 
have  a  certain  concentrated  earnestness,  and  in  narrow 
lines  they  move  with  great  intensity.  John  Eandolph 
was  such  a  man. 

THRUST-POWER. 

I  desire  to  call  your  attention  to  this  force-giving 
power,  that  which  lends  impetuosity,  that  which  gives 
what  I  might  call  lunge  to  a  man's  preaching. 

Why  should  you  waste  your  time  every  Sunday 
morning  and  night,  without  being  conscious  of  having 
done  anything  ?  You  can  afford  to  do  it  occasionally, 
as  there  is  wastage  in  all  systems ;  but  a  man  who  goes 
on  preaching  when  there  is  no  evidence  of  accomplish- 
ment is  like  a  windmill  that  the  boys  put  on  the  top 
of  a  house ;  it  goes  around  and  around,  but  it  grinds 
nothing  below.  Preaching  is  business,  young  gentle- 
men.   It  means  the  hardest  kind  of  work. 

There  is  nothing  else  in  this  world  that  requires  so 
many  resources,  so  much  thought,  so  much  sagacity,  so 
much  constant  application,  so  much  freshness,  such 
intensity  of  conception  within,  and  such  power  of  exe- 
cution without,  as  genuine  preaching.  Ministers  some- 
times think  they  do  their  duty  by  resting  chiefly  on 
their  faithful  pastoral  labors,  but  they  do  not  half  bring 
out  the  preaching-power,  when  they  rely  on  the  indirect 
and  social  influences  that  are  connected  with  it.  One 
should  help  the  other.  You  are  to  bring  out  the 
preaching-element,  if  it  is  in  you;  for,  in  this  age, 


HEALTH,  AS  RELATED  TO  PREACHING. 


preaching  is  almost  everything.  This  is  pre-eminently 
the  talking  age.  A  preacher  must  be  a  good  talker, 
and  must  have  something  in  him  that  is  worth  talking 
about.  People  say,  Show  me  a  man  of  deeds,  and  not 
of  words."  You  might  as  well  say,  "  Show  me  a  field 
of  corn ;  I  don't  care  about  clouds  and  rain."  Talking 
makes  thought  and  feeling,  and  thought  and  feeling 
make  action.  Show  me  a  man  of  words  who  knows 
how  to  incite  noble  deeds  ! 

HEALTH  AS  A  CHEERING  INFLUENCE. 

But,  once  more,  it  is  impossible  for  a  man  who  is 
an  invalid  to  sustain  a  cheerful  and  hopeful  ministry 
among  his  people.  An  invalid  looks  with  a  sad  eye 
upon  human  life.  He  may  be  sympathetic,  but  it  is 
almost  always  with  the  shadows  that  are  in  the  world. 
He  will  give  out  moaning  and  drowsy  hynms.  He  will 
make  prayers  that  are  almost  all  piteous.  It  may  not 
be  a  minister's  fault  if  he  be  afflicted  and  ill,  and  ad- 
ministers his  duties  in  mourning  and  sadness,  but  it  is 
a  vast  misfortune  for  his  people. 

If  there  is  anything  in  this  world  that  is  the  product 
of  wholesome,  healthy  souls,  it  is  the  hope-giving  and 
joyful  comforter.  If  there  was  ever  a  system  of  joy 
and  hope  in  the  world,  prefigured  by  the  prophets,  and 
afterward  characterized  by  the  Sun  of  Eighteousness, 
it  is  that  ardent  and  hope-inspiring  gospel  that  you 
are  to  preach.  You  are  not  sent  out  to  tell  of  the  dun- 
geon and  the  pit,  the  shackle  and  the  yoke,  —  except  as 
redeemed  by  the  power  of  Jesus  Christ  into  rest  and 
peace.  And  the  very  product  of  the  gospel  which  you  are 
to  carry  to  mankind  is  hope  and  cheer.    It  is  good  news. 


190 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


You  find  men  struggling  with  cares.  They  stand 
where  a  dozen  ways  meet,  in  utter  perplexity,  and 
they  want  the  best  advice  you  can  give.  Your  Sunday 
ought  to  bring  this  witness  from  your  flock  every  single 
month  of  your  ministry :  "  If  it  had  not  been  for  the 
refreshment  that  I  got  on  Sundays  I  never  could  liave 
carried  my  burdens."  Tlie  sweetest  praises  that  minis- 
ters can  ever  have  are  from  the  house  of  trouble,  from 
men  in  bankruptcy,  from  men  hunted  by  perverse  for- 
tune almost  to  the  bounds  of  suicide.  They  come  to 
you,  and  say,  Sir,  it  was  the  cheer  and  comfort  of  your 
preaching  that  helped  me  through,  or  I  never  could 
have  endured  it."  That  will  be  better  than  any  guer- 
don and  any  compliment.  We  are  sent  to  men  that 
are  cheerless,  men  in  distress,  men  who  are  burdened ; 
and  we  have  no  business  to  have  any  other  ministry 
than  that  which  is  based  on  the  sweet  teachings  of  the 
Lord  Jesus  Christ.  We  must  learn  ardor  and  fervor 
from  St.  Paul's  interpretation  of  them.  We  must  tell 
of  love,  hope,  courage,  and  the  cheering  prospect  of  a 
blessed  immortality.  What  business  have  you  to  turn 
all  this  into  a  minor  symphony  ?  But  you  cannot  do 
otherwise,  unless  you  keep  yourselves  healthy,  cheerful, 
hopeful,  and  buoyant.  You  must  call  in  to  your  assist- 
ance all  the  help  you  can  derive  from  the  highest 
conditions  of  bodily  health. 

HEALTHFUL  VIEWS  OF  CHRISTIANITY. 

Then  there  is  a  relation  of  this  question  in  another 
direction.  I  think  the  minister  of  a  parish,  who  has 
been  there  for  five  years,  ought  to  impress  upon  the 
young  people  of  his  parish  the  practical  idea,  that  tb 


HEALTH,  AS  KELATED  TO  PREACHING. 


191 


be  a  Christian  is  to  be  the  happiest  person  in  the 
world.  Men  say,  "Let  us  have  our  enjoyment  here, 
and  have  a  good  time ;  then,  when  we  have  had  it,  and 
tasted  what  there  is  to  be  tasted,  we  had  better  be 
pious."  That  is  about  the  idea  of  it.  It  is  a  gloomy 
and  dismal  thing ;  but,  to  a  certain  extent,  we  are  to 
blame  for  this  false  notion. 

Now  it  seems  to  me  that  we  ought  to  make  known 
what  is  unquestionably  the  truth,  namely,  that  Chris- 
tianity aims  only  at  a  nobler  style  of  manhood,  and 
at  a  better  and  happier  style  of  living.  Christianity 
means  friendship  carried  up  into  a  sphere  where  by 
the  natural  man  you  could  never  elevate  it.  It  means 
the  purest  enjoyments  of  earth  as  well  as  heaven.  It 
means  that  life  shall  blossom  like  Aaron's  rod.  And 
every  man  who  is  a  true  Christian  is  one  who  has 
lived  up  to  the  measure  of  his  competency,  in  a  bright 
and  joyful  life,  compared  with  which  all  other  lives  are 
low^  and  ignoble.  The  Apostle  Paul,  after  going  through 
a  long  line  of  exhortations  to  virtue,  finally  wound  up 
by  saying,  Whatever  is  lovely  and  of  good  report, 
think  on  these  things." 

A  true  minister,  in  order  to  inspire  his  congregation 
with  this  noble  conception  of  a  Christian  character  and 
a  Christian  life,  must  have  something  in  him.  He  can- 
not go  around  with  lead  in  his  shoes,  nor  yet  in  his 
head.  He  cannot  drudge  and  complain.  A  man  of 
God  ought  to  strike  men  among  whom  he  moves  as 
being  more  manly  than  anybody  else ;  certainly,  never 
less.  You  should  bear  in  mind  that  you  are  twice  or- 
dained, —  once,  when  your  mother  laid  her  hand  in  love 
upon  your  just-born  head,  after  giving  you  your  organi- 


192 


LiECTURES  ON  PREACHiNCj. 


zation  and  nature ;  and,  again,  by  the  Holy  Ghost,  later 
in  life,  to  give  you  a  fuller  development.  If  you  are 
not  a  man,  what  business  have  you  in  the  ministry  ? 
You  have  mistaken  your  vocation.  You  may  do  to 
make  some  other  things,  but  you  will  not  be  a  maker 
of  men.  It  takes  a  7nan  to  refashion  men.  You  can- 
not do  it  unless  you  have  some  sort  of  vigor,  vitality, 
versatility,  moral  impulse,  and  social  power  in  you. 
And  if  you  have  these  things,  how  they  will  win ! 
How  men  will  want  to  come  to  you !  They  tell  me 
that  the  pulpit  is  losing  its  power,  that  religion  is 
going  under,  and  that  science  is  to  rule.  I  will  put 
genuine  manly  religion  against  all  the  science  in  the 
world. 

HEALTH  AS  A  SWEETENER  OF  WORK. 

I  have  seen  a  great  deal  of  life,  and  on  all  of  its 
sides.  I  have  seen  the  depths  of  poverty,  and  I  have 
seen  competency.  I  have  seen  the  extremity  of  solitari- 
ness, and  the  crowds  of  a  city,  both  at  home  and  abroad. 
I  have  seen  what  art  has  done,  and  whatever  is  to  be 
seen  in  the  wilderness.  I  have  had  youth  and  middle 
age,  and  now  I  am  an  old  man.  I  have  seen  it  all,  and 
I  bear  witness  that,  while  there  are  single  moments  of 
joy  in  other  matters  that,  perhaps,  carry  a  man  up  to 
the  summit  of  feeling,  yet  for  steadfast  and  repetitious 
experience  there  is  no  pleasure  in  this  world  compara- 
ble to  that  which  a  man  has  who  habitually  stands 
before  an  audience  with  an  errand  of  truth,  which  he 
feels  in  every  corner  of  his  soul  and  in  every  fiber  of 
his  body,  and  to  whom  the  Lord  has  given  liberty  of 
utterance,  so  that  he  is  pouring  out  the  whole  manhood 


HEALTH,  AS  RELATED  TO  PREACHING.  193 

in  him  upon  his  congregation.  Nothing  in  the  world 
is  comparable  to  that.  It  goes  echoing  on  in  you  after 
you  get  through.  Once  in  a  while  I  preach  sermons 
that  leave  me  in  such  a  delightful  state  of  mind  that 
I  do  not  get  over  it  for  two  days ;  and  I  wonder  that 
I  am  not  a  better  man.  I  feel  it  all  day  Sunday  and 
Monday,  and  there  is  not  an  organ  in  the  world  that 
makes  music  so  grand  to  me  as  I  feel  in  such  supreme 
hours  and  moments.  But  I  am  conscious  how  largely 
the  physical  element  of  healthfulness  enters  into  this 
experience.  When  I  am  depressed  in  body  and  heavy 
in  mind  I  do  not  get  it.  You  cannot  expect  either 
these  exceptional,  higher  consummations,  or  tlie  strong, 
steady  flow  of  a  joyful  relish  for  your  work,  unless  you 
cultivate  a  robust  and  healthful  manhood. 

PRACTICAL  HINTS. 

I  will  now  suggest  to  you  some  practical  directions, 
which  are  very  largely  the  result  of  my  personal  ex- 
perience, and  which  may  be  profitable  to  you.  You 
must  excuse  any  egotism  T  may  exhibit.  As  I  under- 
stand it,  these  lectures  are  nothing  but  a  branch  of 
the  regular  chair  of  Pastoral  Theology,  and  I  am  to 
explain  here  in  its  practical  form  that  which,  in  its 
philosophical  form.  Professor  Hoppin  gives  you  in  his 
instructions  at  other  times.  Experience  is  always  ego- 
tism, and  that  is  whccu  I  am  here  to  give  you. 

To  begin  with,  I  will  say  that  I  had  this  advantage, 
that  my  father  was  a  dyspeptic.  From  my  earliest 
childhood  I  noticed  the  great  watchfulness  and  skill 
with  which  he  took  care  of  himself,  and  now  and  then 
he  dropped  words  of  advice.    When  I  went  into  the 

9  M 


194 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


ministry,  I  remembered  some  of  his  maxims  and  some 
of  his  incidental  utterances.  They  led  me  to  think 
about  caring  for  my  own  health ;  I  did  not  know 
much  about  it,  but  I  thought  about  it.  I  "  watched  "  it, 
as  the  engineers  say  on  the  road.  A  good  engineer 
watches  both  the  engine  and  the  road.  And  now,  as 
the  result  of  between  thirty  and  forty  years  of  inces- 
sant preaching,  I  give  you  these  hints  in  regard  to 
the  care  of  your  health. 

MUSCULAR  STRENGTH  NOT  ENOUGH. 

When  I  first  began,  I  had  an  impression  that  if  I  had 
good  bone  and  muscle  I  should  be  all  right.  I  very 
soon  learned  that  it  was  possible  for  a  man  to  take  too 
much  exercise,  and  that  a  man  could  be  built  up  phys- 
ically at  the  expense  of  his  brain.  You  are  sufficiently 
acquainted  with  aquatic  and  other  sports  to  know  that 
you  may  over-train  a  man,  so  that  he  is  carried  beyond 
his  highest  power.  Now,  if  you  undertake,  as  scholars, 
very  violent  exercise,  according  to  the  exaggerated  idea 
of  muscular  Christianity,  you  will  very  soon  use  up 
all  the  vitality  of  your  system  in  the  bone-and-muscle 
development,  and  it  will  leave  you,  not  better,  but  less 
fitted  for  intellectual  exertion.  Yet  there  must  be 
enough  care  given  to  bone  and  muscle  to  furnish  a 
good  platform,  on  which  your  artillery  is  to  stand. 

THE  ART  OF  EATING, 

Next  comes  the  stomach.  In  regard  to  that,  every- 
body feels  that  he  must  not  be  a  glutton  nor  a  gor- 
mand,  but  there  is  very  little  discrimination  and  very 


HEALTH,  AS  RELATED  TO  PREACHING.  195 

little  observation  as  to  the  quantity  and  quality  and 
the  times  and  seasons  of  eating.  Preachers  may  be 
divided  into  two  great  classes  :  the  sanguineous  class, 
who  cannot  eat  much  if  they  are  going  to  think  or 
speak;  and  the  class  who  have  the  extreme  nervous 
temperament,  who  cannot  speak  or  w^ork  unless  they  do 
eat.  On  Sunday  morning,  when  I  wake,  my  first  thought 
is  that  it  is  Sunday  morning,  and  the  very  idea  of  it 
takes  away  my  appetite.  I  go  down,  drink  a  cup  of 
coffee,  and  eat  an  egg  and  half  a  slice  of  toast.  That 
is  all  I  can  eat.  There  is  just  enough  to  sustain  my 
system.  Then  I  preach,  and,  if  I  have  not  done  very 
well,  I  am  hungry ;  but  if  I  have  done  very  well,  I 
cannot  eat  much  dinner.  That  is  because  there  is  a 
reaction  of  the  nervous  influence  of  the  system.  The 
whole  system  is  working  so  much  by  the  brain  and 
the  nerves  that  the  stomach  does  not  crave  anything. 
Just  as  great  grief,  or  fear,  or  any  other  extreme  passion, 
takes  away  appetite,  so  does  active  preaching.  Ordi- 
narily, I  take  but  a  moderate  dinner  on  Sunday.  Sup- 
per with  me  is  at  five  o'clock  in  the  afternoon,  and  I 
usually  take  a  cup  of  tea  and  a  small  piece  of  cracker. 
That  is  all  I  can  take.  Then  I  go  to  my  evening  work, 
and  when  I  get  through,  I  sometimes  am  satisfied  to 
take  nothing  but  an  orange,  which  I  eat  to  give  my 
stomach  something  to  do  until  morning,  and  to  keep 
it  from  craving,  —  for  often  a  fit  of  craving  will  give 
one  a  nightmare  as  quickly  as  overfeeding  will.  At 
other  times  I  feel  a  strong  appetite,  and  then  I  eat. 
Perhaps  once  out  of  five  Sundays  I  eat  more  just  after 
preaching,  morning  or  evening,  than  I  do  all  the  rest 
of  the  day  put  together.    The  system  indicates  it,  and 


196 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


therefore  I  am  not  harmed  by  it.  It  does  not  disturb 
my  sleep,  and  digestion  goes  on  perfectly. 

Now  the  point  I  take  is,  not  that  you  shall  follow 
this,  but  that  you  shall  find  out,  accurately,  in  regard 
to  your  own  eating,  what  obstructs  and  what  does  not 
obstruct  your  mental  operations.  If  you  go  to  your 
study  after  a  hearty  breakfast,  and  you  find  it  takes 
you  from  eight  o'clock  to  eleven  before  you  really  get 
into  your  work,  you  may  be  pretty  sure  that  you  have 
overloaded  your  stomach,  and  that  the  energies  of  your 
system  have  been  so  busy  in  the  work  of  digestion  that 
you  could  not  call  them  off  to  do  brain-work.  But  if 
you  get  up  from  the  table  after  a  comparatively  light 
meal,  which  requires  but  little  digestion,  and  when  you 
go  into  your  study  find  that  you  can  apply  yourself  at 
once  to  your  labor,  it  is  because  you  have  eaten  in  due 
proportion  to  the  needs  of  your  system.  Eating  is  to 
the  work  of  the  human  body  just  what  the  firing  up 
of  an  engine  is  to  traveling.  Eating  is  a  means  to  an 
end.  It  is  not  a  habit  nor  a  social  custom  merely.  It 
is  not  a  question  of  luxury.  Do  men  eat  stupidly,  and 
simply  because  they  are  hungry  ?  You  eat  to  make 
working  force ;  and  as  the  engineer  keeps  his  eye  all 
the  time  on  the  steam-gauge  to  know  the  number  of 
pounds  of  pressure,  and  to  regulate  it  to  the  various 
conditions  of  going  up  or  down  grade  or  on  a  level,  and 
to  the  number  of  passengers  he  is  carrying,  so  does  a 
man  eat,  or  so  ought  he  to  eat,  all  the  time  gauging 
himself.  You  have,  in  fact,  to  eat  much  or  little,  ac- 
cording to  the  work  you  have  to  do.  When  you  come 
back  from  a  journey,  you  must  be  careful  not  to  over- 
work yourself,  and  not  to  eat  too  much.    If  you  are  in 


HEALTH,  AS  RELATED  TO  PREACHING.  197 


regular  harness  and  are  working,  you  ought  to  know 
what  you  shall  eat.  Your  business  is  to  eat  so  that 
you  can  think  and  work,  and  not  for  self-indulgence 
only. 

QUANTITY  OF  SLEEP. 

The  same  holds  good  in  respect  to  sleep.  Many  men, 
going  into  the  ministry,  have  broken  down  from  want 
of  sleep.  I  will  say  a  few  things  on  that  point.  In  the 
first  place,  sleep,  that  was  reckoned  involuntary,  like 
many  other  involuntary  things,  can  to  a  certain  extent 
be  brought  under  the  dominion  of  habit  and  the  will. 
There  is  no  doubt  but  that  the  human  will  is  the 
strongest  power  in  this  world,  next  to  death.  A  man 
who  says,  By  the  grace  of  God  I  WILL,"  and  who 
feels  it  in  his  bones,  in  his  muscles,  and  in  his  whole 
being,  can  do  almost  anything.  Now  it  may  seem  a 
little  singular,  but  it  is  true,  that  if  you  are  possessed 
of  a  very  nervous  organization  you  will  need  less  sleep 
than  if  you  are  of  a  phlegmatic  temperament.  If  a 
man  is  dull,  lethargic,  and  slow,  eight  or  nine  hours  of 
sleep  is  necessary  for  him.  But,  if  he  is  nervous,  lithe, 
thin,  quick,  vividly  sensitive,  so  that  he  is  all  the  time 
letting  out  sparks  somewhere,  he  will  require  but  from 
five  to  seven  hours'  sleep.  That  seems  very  strange, 
but  it  is  just  as  simple  as  anything  can  be.  Sleep  is 
an  active  operation,  during  which  the  process  of  assimi- 
lation goes  on.  Now,  the  nervous  man  eats  quickly, 
works  quickly,  and  sleeps  quickly.  He  does  just  as 
much  work  while  he  is  sleeping  six  hours  as  the  lethar- 
gic man  does  in  seven  or  eight.  A  man  who  is  slow  and 
plethoric,  who  takes  a  breath  before  every  word,  and 


m 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


who  never  has  a  quick  motion,  can  never  sleep  quickly. 
He  will  be  an  hour  in  doing  up  as  much  work  in  his 
sleep  as  another  man  will  do  in  forty  minutes.  The 
temperament  acts  throughout.  Never  gauge  the  dura- 
tion of  your  sleep  by  the  time  any  one  else  sleeps. 
Some  men  will  tell  you  that  John  Wesley  had  only  so 
much  sleep,  Hunter,  the  great  physiologist,  so  much,  and 
Napoleon  so  much  sleep.  When  the  Lord  made  you, 
as  a  general  thing,  he  did  not  make  Napoleons.  Every 
man  carries  within  himself  a  Mount  Sinai,  a  revealed 
law,  written  for  himself  separately.  You  must  admin- 
ister sleep  to  yourselves  according  to  your  tempera- 
ment, your  constitution,  and  your  wants.  Something 
you  may  know  presumptively,  but  principally  you  must 
learn  by  experience. 

Sometimes,  when  men  get  into  hard  work,  they  are 
apt  to  sleep  too  much.  Others,  again,  are  inclined  to 
sleep  too  little.  Let  me  say  to  you  here,  that  of  all 
dire  mistakes  among  young  gentlemen,  night  study  is 
the  greatest.  There  may  be  some  of  you  that  can  carry 
that  out  well.  Some  men  are  so  tough  that  nothing 
will  seem  to  affect  them  detrimentally.  But  I  think 
that  more  than  eighty  per  cent  of  ministers  who  in- 
dulge in  night  study  abbreviate  their  lives,  weaken 
their  tone,  and  take  away  from  themselves  the  fullness 
of  their  power.    It  is  bad  to  do  it. 

BADLY  REGULATED  WORK. 

It  is  especially  bad  for  a  preacher  to  prepare  his  ser- 
mons on  Saturday  night.  It  is  bad  for  a  man  to  keep 
his  brain  at  the  top  of  its  power  from  early  on  Satur- 
day to  late  at  night,  so  that  he  sleeps  in  a  fiery  dream  of 


HEALTH,  AS  RELATED  TO  PREACHING. 


199 


sermon.  For  then,  he  preaches  on  Sunday ;  and  there 
are  two  days  in  which  the  brain  is  unintermittingly 
impleted  and  stimulated.  It  is  hot  and  feverish.  Then, 
worse  than  all,  comes  what  is  called  "  black  Monday," 
a  day  upon  which  the  minister  throws  off  everything, 
and  thus  completely  unstrings  the  bow. 

You  must  give  yourselves  intervals  of  rest  and  play- 
time. But  never  let  an  excitement  have  such  a  rest 
that  you  run  clear  down.  The  way  to  cure  an  excite- 
ment is  to  meet  it  with  another  one.  If  you  have 
preached  all  the  week,  and  are  keyed  up  very  high,  and 
you  say  to  yourself,  "  Now  I  must  rest,"  and  you  rest 
a  day,  but  still  the  nervous  excitement  continues ;  and 
Sunday  you  call  again  upon  your  brain,  which  gives  the 
response,  you  will,  perhaps,  be  carried  over  Monday; 
but  by  Tuesday  you  begin  to  come  down,  and  you  think 
the  earth  is  not  so  bright  as  it  formerly  seemed.  You 
begin  to  think  that  you  have  mistaken  your  vocation, 
and  that  you  will  turn  farmer.  Then  you  have  gone 
down  as  far  as  you  ought.  Some  begin  to  see  the  blue 
devils  at  that  point.  You  must  meet  fire  with  fire. 
A  new  excitement,  brought  in  from  another  quarter, 
however,  and  of  a  different  nature,  will  meet  the  old 
one,  and  on  the  ashes  of  the  past  you  will  build  up  a 
new  flame. 

I  have  sometimes  had  a  whole  month  of  undertone, 
because  I  let  go  and  ran  clear  down,  not  knowing  then 
how  to  meet  one  excitement  with  another,  and  thus 
carry  myself  along  healthily. 

For  the  Sabbath  day,  it  seems  to  me  that  while  it  is 
important  that  you  should  train  for  thought  and  matter, 
it  is  only  second  in  importance  that  you  should  train 


200 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


also  for  condition.  Now,  no  man  who  studies  daring 
the  last  part  of  the  w^eek  so  that  he  comes  to  Sunday 
with  only  the  refuse  of  w^hat  he  has  in  him,  making 
it  his  weakest  day,  can  come  up  to  the  requirements 
of  his  duty.  He  is  kept  in  a  continual  state  of  ex- 
citement, passing  from  one  strain  to  another  without  in- 
terval. No  man  is  wise  who  does  it.  Saturday  should 
be  a  play-day.  I  make  it  a  day,  not  of  laziness,  but 
of  genial,  social,  pleasurable  exhilaration.  I  go  up 
street  and  see  pleasant  people.  I  go  and  look  at  pic- 
tures. I  have  a  great  many  sources  of  enjoyment  that 
many  of  you  could  not  enjoy.  I  love  to  see  horses. 
I  like  to  go  on  the  street  and  see  the  different  teams 
go  by.  I  like  to  stand  on  the  ferry-boat  and  see  the 
splendid  horses  come  on  with  their  great  loads.  I 
like  a  Dexter.  I  like  all  fine  horses,  but  I  like  the 
dray-horses,  too.  There  is  such  a  sense  of  might  and 
power  with  them.  They  are  almost  as  interesting  as 
a  locomotive  engine  —  the  finest  thing  man  ever  cre- 
ated, unless  it  be  a  watch.  I  like  to  go  to  Tiffany's. 
I  ask,  "  What  are  your  men  doing  to-day  ? "  "  Well," 
says  Tiffany,  "  we  will  go  down  and  see."  We  go 
down  to  the  ateliers ^  watch  the  workmen  silver-plating 
and  engraving,  and  talk  with  them.  It  is  a  good  thing 
for  you  to  live  close  to  common  people,  plain  folks 
and  working-men.  It  keeps  you  near  to  humanity 
as  distinguished  from  artificiality  and  conventionalism. 
After  I  get  home  I  enjoy  myself  quietly  in  the  evening, 
and  when  Sunday  comes  I  am  impleted.  I  have  fresh 
blood ;  and  without  training  for  condition,  I  have  it. 
I  feel  like  a  race-horse.  Sometimes  I  cannot  wait  for 
the  time  to  come  for  me  to  go  into  the  pulpit.    I  long 


HEALTH,  AS  RELATED  TO  PREACHING. 


201 


to  speak.  But  this  result  cannot  be  attained  by  study- 
ing yourselves  up,  and  coming  into  church  on  Sunday 
quite  dry  and  desiccated. 

SLEEP  AFTER  WORK. 

People  have  often  asked  me  how  I  managed  to  sleep 
after  preaching.  Generally,  I  do  not  have  any  difficulty 
in  getting  to  sleep.  I  can  always  sleep  after  a  good  ser- 
mon, and  even  bad  ones  do  not  keep  me  awake  long ! 
You  must  remember  that  the  reason  why  a  man  cannot 
sleep  after  excitement  is  because  his  brain  is  gorged 
with  blood.  The  blood  is  the  stimulus  which'  works 
the  brain,  and  the  brain  draws  to  itself  all  the  blood  it 
can  get.  I  always  know  whether  my  brain  has  been 
doing  its  work  well  or  not.  If  I  find  my  hands  and 
feet  warm,  I  say  generally  that  the  product  of  my 
thought  is  not  worth  much  ;  and  I  begin  to  think  there 
has  been  a  waste  of  brain-material.  But  if  my  hands  and 
feet  grow  chilly,  and  I  have  to  wrap  up  all  over,  on 
account  of  the  blood,  which  is  the  working  force,  being 
drawn  away  from  the  extremities  to  the  brain,  T  know 
that  the  thinking  power  has  been  busy, —  has  probably 
worked  to  some  effect.  You  must  deal  with  yourselves 
on  this  theory ;  whatever  will  distribute  the  blood  to 
every  part  of  your  system  will  relieve  the  brain,  and 
you  will  be  able  to  go  to  sleep.  In  the  first  place,  do 
not  talk  after  preaching  on  Sunday  nights.  Do  not  go 
home  and  have  a  good  time  over  what  you  have  seen 
and  heard.  Many  a  minister  uses  himself  up  more  by 
the  after-piece  than  he  does  by  the  main  performance. 
It  is  sweet  to  talk  when  you  are  in  such  fine  condition ! 
Everybody  is  there  pouring  out  compliments  upon  you. 

9* 


202 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


But  they  are  wasting  you.  You  are  like  the  cocoon  of 
a  silkworm,  which  they  are  unwinding,  and  in  so  doing 
they  take  the  life  out  of  you.  You  never  get  through 
your  work.  I  owe  what  I  know  of  horticulture  to  the 
study  I  gave  it  at  short  intervals,  when  I  was  preaching 
every  day  for  two  years,  and  twice  on  Sunday,  besides 
doing  revival  and  other  work.  I  got  out  of  the  State 
Library  of  Indiana  four  or  five  volumes  of  Loudon's 
works  on  agriculture  and  horticulture.  I  read  them. 
There  was  a  charm  in  reading  even  the  names  of  the 
plants  in  the  catalogues,  although  there  was  nothing  very 
stimulating  in  it.  It  was  like  Webster's  Dictionary, 
where  the  connection  is  broken  at  every  word,  and  yet 
it  is  intensely  interesting  to  read.  In  that  way  I  let 
myself  down  quietly,  and  then  I  could  go  to  sleep. 

But  suppose  I  cannot  go  to  sleep  ?  I  get  up  from 
bed,  and  walk  about  the  room  without  dressing  myself 
That  is,  I  take  an  air-bath,  and,  if  need  be,  I  throw  up 
the  window,  and  keep  on  walking,  not  until  I  am  chilled, 
but  until  I  am  pretty  nearly  chilled.  The  moment  that 
any  part  of  the  human  body  is  attacked,  the  vital  forces 
rush  to  tliat  part  to  repair  any  loss  that  may  have  taken 
place.  If  you  take  cold,  the  vital  forces  instantly  at- 
tempt to  establish  the  equilibrium.  Bring  cold  to  bear 
upon  your  body,  and  the  vital  forces  instantly  send  out 
the  blood  to  the  part  where  the  cold  is,  to  restore  the 
warmth,  and  that  relieves  the  system.  The  blood  ceases 
to  be  dammed  up  in  the  brain  and  in  the  large  vessels. 

But  suppose  I  cannot  sleep  tlien ;  what  is  to  be  done  ? 
I  say  to  myself,  "  Now,  you  have  got  to  go  to  sleep ;  and 
the  sooner  you  give  up,  the  better  it  will  be."  So  I 
walk  into  the  bath-room,  and  turn  on  a  little  water,  just 


HEALTH,  AS  RELATED  TO  PREACHING.  203 

enough  to  put  my  feet  and  ankles  into  ;  and  it  is  very 
rare  indeed  that  the  obstinacy  of  my  system  resists  that. 
This  operation  brings  the  blood  down  to  the  feet,  and  I 
can  almost  always  get  to  sleep.  If  I  cannot,  I  turn  on 
a  little  more  water  and  sit  down  in  it. 

All  this  is  treating  one's  self  physiologically,  medi- 
cally, so  to  speak,  without  medicine.  It  is  treating 
one's  self  according  to  correct  principles  for  the  sake 
of  procuring  sleep.  If  you  do  not  sleep,  first  or  last, 
your  audience  will ;  and  therefore  it  is  necessary  that 
you  should  sleep  for  them,  that  they  may  keep  awake 
to  hear  what  you  may  have  to  say.  More  than  that, 
when  a  man  has  gone  through  the  paroxysm  of  the 
week,  which  is  Sunday,  it  is  necessary  that  he  should, 
as  soon  as  possible,  be  put  into  a  state  to  go  to  work 
again. 

Therefore  you  should  eat  as  you  would  fire  an  en- 
gine ;  and  sleep,  remembering  that  out  of  sleep  comes 
the  whole  force  of  wakefulness,  with  the  power  you 
have  in  it. 

There  are  many  other  points  that  I  had  in  mind,  but 
I  have  already  taken  so  much  of  your  time  that  I  will 
not  detain  you  longer,  but  will  merely  await  your  ques- 
tions. 

QUESTION'S  AND  ANSWERS. 

Q.  Will  you  say  a  word  as  to  the  number  of  hours  a  man 
should  spend  in  his  study  ?  How  many  hours  a  day,  at  the 
maximum  ? 

Mr.  Beecher.  —  Tliere  is  no  absolute  rule  that  can 
be  given  in  all  cases.  I  should  think,  however,  that, 
at  the  maximum,  a  man  can  do  as  much  in  four  hours' 


204 


LECTUKES  ON  PREACHING. 


work  during  the  day  as  he  needs  to  do.  But  it  must 
be  work.  You  can  sometimes  collect  materials  for  your 
work,  although  you  do  not  feel  like  working.  You  can 
ascertain  the  negative,  if  you  cannot  create  the  positive. 
Sometimes  a  man  will  study  a  whole  day  to  find  out 
that  he  cannot  do  a  thing  that  he  was  counting  on. 
But  I  do  not  think  that  any  man  can  originate  matter, 
and  pursue  a  course  of  severe  fruitful  study,  for  more 
than  four  hours  a  day.  I  do  not  believe  that  he  can 
average  that.  I  think  that  ministers  often  attempt 
to  study  too  much.  If  they  would  concentrate  their 
power,  and  use  it  regularly,  they  would  get  out  much 
more  than  by  spreading  it  over  so  much  ground. 

Q.  Should  one  do  much  in  the  way  of  preparing  a  sermon  on 
Monday  ? 

Mr.  Beecher.  —  No;  unless  he  is  going  to  preach 
on  Monday  night.  Saturday  and  Monday  ought  to  be 
inclined  planes,  the  former  a  very  inclined  plane  up  to 
Sunday,  and  the  latter  an  inclined  plane  away  from  it. 
There  are  a  great  many  things  that  a  man  can  do  on 
Monday,  which  are  necessary  to  be  done,  but  he  should 
not  gorge  his  brain  on  that  day. 

Q.  Ought  a  man  to  prepare  his  sermons  on  Sunday  morning, 
and  make  a  practice  of  it? 

Mr.  Beecher.  —  If  the  Lord  showed  him  that  that 
was  the  best  way  of  doing  it,  he  should.  I  do  not 
know  whether  you  mean  to  be  personal  or  not,  but 
that  is  my  habit. 

When  I  went  to  LaAvrenceburg,  I  went  thinking 
that  I  would  do  the  best  I  could.  I  had  the  vague 
general  instru^.tion^  that  are  given,  to    lay  deep  foun- 


HEALTH,  AS  RELATED  TO  PREACHING.  205 


dations,  to  study  thoroughly,  and  to  bring,"  as  old  Dr. 
Humphrey  used  to  say,  nothing  but  the  beaten  oil  in- 
to the  sanctuary."  I  felt  that  this  was  connected  with 
regular  and  incessant  study  during  all  the  week.  I 
tried  to  study  so.  I  succeeded  in  studying,  but  I  could 
not  succeed  in  using  what  I  had.  On  Sunday  T  could 
not  do  anything  with  what  I  had  so  laboriously  dug 
out  during  the  week.  Of  course,  I  increased  my  gen- 
eral stock  of  knowledge.  Sometimes  I  would  find  that 
after  working  a  subject  up  all  the  week,  something  else 
would  take  possession  of  me  on  Saturday,  and  I  would 
have  to  preach  it  on  Sunday  to  get  rid  of  it.  I  felt 
ashamed  and  mortified,  and  began  to  fear  I  was  on  the 
way  to  superficiality.  I  made  many  promises,  that,  if 
God  would  help  me,  I  would  make  my  sermons  a  long 
time  beforehand.  I  kept  on  making  promises  and 
breaking  them,  and  the  older  I  grew  the  worse  I  grew  ; 
and  finally,  in  spite  of  prayers  and  resolutions,  I  had 
to  give  it  up  and  prepare  my  sermons  mostly  on  Sun- 
day morning  and  Sunday  afternoon.  But  then  you 
must  recollect  that  this  was  accompanied  by  another 
liabit,  —  that  of  regular  study  and  continual  observa- 
tion. I  do  not  believe  that  I  ever  met  a  man  on  the  * 
street  that  I  did  not  get  from  him  some  element  for  a 
sermon.  I  never  see  anything  in  nature  which  does 
not  work  toward  that  for  which  I  m  ve  the  strencrth  of 

o  o 

my  life.  The  material  for  my  sermons  is  all  the  time 
following  me  and  swarming  up  around  me.  I  am 
tracing  out  analogies,  which  I  afterward  take  pains  to 
verify,  to  see  whether  my  views  of  certain  truths  were 
correct.  I  follow  them  out  in  my  study,  and  see  how 
such  things  are  taught  by  others. 


206 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


These  things  I  do  not  always  at  the  time  formulate 
for  use,  but  it  is  a  process  of  accumulation.  Now,  by 
the  peculiar  temperament  given  to  me,  I  am  able,  out 
of  this  material,  when  Sunday  comes  and  I  know  what 
I  want  to  do  with  my  congregation,  to  bring  up  some 
instrument  to  do  it  with,  some  view  of  truth  that  will 
include  in  it  a  <>reat  many  of  the  results  reached  lons^ 
before  by  the  practice  I  have  been  describing,  and 
which  are  crystallized  ready  for  use.  In  that  way  I 
make  my  sermons.  Another  man  begins  his  on  Tues- 
day, and  he  would  be  untrue  to  himself  if  he  followed 
any  other  plan.  Every  man  must  find  out  the  way  lie 
is  to  work.  I  would  advise  no  young  man  to  follow  my 
method.  It  happens  to  be  my  way,  but  it  is  very  likely 
not  to  be  yours.  You  can  find  out,  by  trying,  which  is 
the  best  way  for  you  to  work. 


IX. 


SERMON-MAKING. 

OTHING  could  well  be  more  unlike  the 
preaching   of   the  apostolic    times  than 
that  which   exists   in    the   regular  and 
organized  churches  of  the  modern  days 
in  Christendom. 

I  often  wonder  that  there  has  been  no  sect  formed 
upon  the  basis  of  preaching.  The  Church  has  been 
divided  in  reference  to  baptism,  seeking  a  literal  imita- 
tion of  the  primitive  practice.  It  is  organized  and  re- 
organized on  the  question  of  organization.  The  world 
has  been  full  of  contending  sects  upon  matters  of  exact 
interpretation  of  doctrine.  Almost  the  only  possible 
point  on  which  a  sect  could  be  built,  that  has  been  left 
unoccupied,  is  the  sermon.  Why  have  we  not  had 
sects  declaring  tliat  we  must  preach  sermons  precisely 
after  the  patterns  of  the  apostolic  sermons  ? 

THE  DISCOURSES  OF  JESUS. 

The  discourses  of  our  Lord  were  in  form,  method, 
and  genius,  eminently  Jewish.  He  was  regarded  by 
the  common  people  as  a  superior  Eabbi.  He  certainly 
adopted  methods  that  were  then  current,  of  teaching, 


208 


LECTUKES  ON  PREACHING. 


and  illustrating  his  teaching  by  parables,  questioning 
the  multitude,  and  receiving  questions  in  return,  moving 
from  place  to  place,  gathering  his  audience  as  he  went, 
' —  in  short,  doing  as  his  countrymen  did,  and  differing 
from  them  only  in  the  superior  manner  of  doing  it. 

MODE  OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

The  early  preaching  of  the  Apostles  was  confined  to 
a  very  narrow  circle.  They  were  Jews.  They  were 
preaching  to  Jews.  The  point  to  which  everything 
tended  was,  that  Jesus  Christ  was  to  stand  in  the  place 
of  the  old  Mosaic  law.  Their  arguments  were  scrip- 
tural and  national.  We  have  but  little  evidence  that 
they  preached  in  any  such  systematic  manner  as  has 
grown  up  in  churches  since  their  time.  Already  they 
found  a  system  of  morality,  a  system  of  public  worship, 
and  a  general  development  of  public  truth.  It  was 
their  business  to  concentrate  all  these  elements  around 
the  person  of  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  in  him  to  estab- 
lish a  new  centre  of  influence,  and  from  him  to  derive 
a  living  force  such  as  could  not  proceed  from  the  dry 
fonnulas  of  the  law. 

CHARACTERISTICS  OF  MODERN  PREACHING. 

The  pulpit,  as  it  has  come  down  to  us,  has  had  an 
extraordinary  history.  For  one  reason  and  another  it 
has,  in  many  periods  of  time,  been  almost  the  exclusive 
source  of  knowledge  among  the  common  people.  Before 
books  were  either  plenty  or  cheap  ;  before  the  era  of 
the  newspaper,  the  magaz.ine^  or  the  tract ;  before 
knowledge  was  poured  in,  as  now,  from  a  hundred 
quarters,  —  an  era  almost  flooded  with  it,  the  people 


SERMON-MAKING. 


209 


im]3ibing  it,  so  to  speak,  through  the  very  pores  of  their 
skin, —  the  pulpit  was  the  school,  the  legislative  hall, 
the  court  of  law ;  in  short,  the  university  of  the  com- 
mon people.  By  change  of  circumstances,  many  ele- 
ments of  success  in  one  age  cease  to  be  operative  in  an- 
other. Preaching  will  be  proper  or  improper,  wise  or 
successful,  in  proportion  as  it  adapts  itself  to  the  special 
want  of  the  different  peoples  and  the  different  classes 
of  people  in  any  one  time.  It  may  be  said,  in  general, 
that  the  length  and  breadth  of  topics  will  be  in  inverse 
ratio  to  the  civilization  and  refinement  of  the  people ; 
that  is  to  say,  the  pulpit  in  rude  r^eigl'  borhood,  where 
the  knowledge  of  the  people  will  mainly  be  derived 
from  it,  must  cover  a  broader  ground,  and  must  instruct 
the  people  in  a  hundred  different  things  which  in  civ- 
ilized and  refined  communities  they  learn  from  other 
sources.  As  refinement  increases,  however,  the  tax  laid 
upon  a  minister's  resources  augments  immeasurably.  In 
order  to  maintain  authority  and  influence,  he  must  not 
be  behind  his  own  auditory.  If  knowledge  is  increas- 
ing among  his  people,  every  year  will  require  him  to 
develop  new  resources.  I  do  not  think  there  is  any  pro- 
fession that  demands  so  much  of  a  man  as  that  of  the 
Christian  ministry.  Besides  the  doulle  oration  on 
Sunday,  the  prayer  meeting,  the  conference  meeting,  and 
various  other  forms  of  neighborhood  meetings,  are  draw- 
ing incessantly  upon  him.  He  is  the  Toot  and  trunk 
through  which  a  thousand  leaves  are  drawing  sap. 

LABORIOUSNESS  OF  THE  MINISTRY. 

The  lawyer  has  the  facts  of  his  case  made  up  and 
brought  to  him.    He  is  aroused  by  direct  antagonisms 


210 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


He  is  striving  for  an  end  which  may  be  gained  or  lost 
in  the  compass  of  a  few  hours  or  a  few  days.  Every- 
thing is  real,  visible,  near,  and  stimulating  to  him.  But 
the  Christian  minister,  from  week  to  week,  and  through 
years,  if  his  ministry  be  long  in  the  same  place,  must 
discourse  on  themes  high,  recondite,  and  infinite  in  va- 
riety, and  find  his  incitement  either  in  the  general 
affection  which  he  has  for  his  people,  or  in  the  special 
fascination  of  the  truths  which  he  preaches.  His  mind 
derives  stimulation  wholly  from  internal  sources,  and 
he  gets  but  little  help  from  externals.  In  the  silence 
of  his  study,  or  in  his  solitary  walks,  he  devises  his  own 
plans ;  and  although  his  sermons  are  aimed  at  certain 
external  conditions,  at  particular  classes  of  men,  or 
special  wants,  yet  in  the  course  of  years  it  becomes  dif- 
ficult, week  after  week,  to  educate  the  same  people  in 
the  s^me  general  direction,  without  repetition  of  one's 
self,  without  growing  formal,  or  falling  into  dull  di- 
dactics. When  I  consider  the  steady  pull  which  the 
pulpit  makes  upon  the  Christian  minister,  I  marvel 
not  that  sermons  are  so  poor,  but  that  they  are  so  good; 
and  I  think  that  neither  the  pulpit  nor  the  ministry 
have  anything  to  fear  from  a  just  comparison  of  their 
results  with  those  of  any  other  learned  profession  in 
society. 

This  necessity  of  preparing  every  week  fresh  matter 
becomes,  to  unfruitful  minds,  an  excessive  taxation,  and 
drives  men  to  all  manner  of  devices  ;  and,  even  at  the 
best,  it  is  no  small  burden  for  a  man  to  carry  through 
the  year  his  pack  of  sermons,  born  or  unborn.  While 
men  are  stimulated  in  the  seminary  to  the  higher  con- 
ceptions of  the  duty  of  preaching,  while  newspapers 


SERMON-MAKING. 


211 


are  criticising,  and  hungry  and  fastidious  audiences 
grow  more  and  more  exacting  in  their  demands,  few 
there  are  who  consider  or  sympathize  kindly  with  the 
necessities  that  are  laid  upon  young  men  and  upon  old 
men,  to  bring  forth  an  amount  of  fresh  and  instructive 
matter,  such  as  is  produced  in  no  other  profession  under 
the  sun.  We  do  not  desire  to  have  preacliing  made 
less  thorough  or  less  instructive,  but  it  is  desirable  that 
it  should  be  less  burdensome.  Many  and  many  a  min- 
ister is  a  prisoner  all  the  week  to  his  two  sermons. 
Into  them  he  has  poured  his  whole  life,  and  when  they 
are  done  there  is  little  of  him  left  for  pastoral  labors 
and  social  life.  Few  men  there  are  who  are  upborne 
and  carried  forward  by  their  sermons.  Few  men  as- 
cend, as  the  prophet  did,  in  a  chariot  of  fire.  The 
majority  of  preachers  are  consciously  harnessed,  and 
draw  heavily  and  long  at  the  sermon,  which  tugs  behind 
them.  In  every  way,  then,  it  is  desirable  that  preach- 
ing should  be  made  more  easy,  that  men  should  learn 
to  take  advantage  of  their  own  temperament,  and  that 
they  should  learn  the  best  plans  and  methods. 

PREPARATION  OF  THE  SERMON. 

And  first  let  me  speak  of  written  and  unwritten  dis- 
courses. No  man  can  speak  well,  the  substance  oflj 
whose  sermons  has  not  been  prepared  beforehand/^ 
Men  talk  of  extemporaneous  preaching,"  but  the  only 
part  that  can  properly  be  extemporaneous  is  the  exter- 
nal form.  Sometimes,  indeed,  one  may  be  called  to 
preach  off-hand,  —  ex  tempore,  —  and  may  do  it  with 
great  success ;  but  all  such  sermons  will  really  be  the 
results  of  previous  study.    The  matter  must  be  the 


212 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


outgrowth  of  research,  of  experience,  and  of  thought. 
Most  preachers  have  mtuitional  moments,  —  are,  so  to 
speak,  at  times  inspired ;  but  such  moments  are  not 
usual,  and  no  true  inspiration  is  based  upon  ignorance. 

It  is  not,  therefore,  a  question  whether  men  shall 
depend  upon  the  inspiration  of  the  moment  for  their 
matter,  since  all  w^ho  ever  speak  well  must,  in  some 
way,  have  prepared  for  it ;  but  whether,  having  some- 
thing to  teach,  tliey  shall  reduce  their  instruction  to 
writing,  or  give  it  forth  unwritten. 

ADVANTAGES  AND  DANGERS  OF  WRITTEN  SERMONS. 

Many  considerations  have  been  urged  for  and  against 
written  and  unwritten  sermons  ;  and  there  are  advan- 
tages in  both  kinds,  and  both  have  their  disadvantages ; 
so  that  a  true  system  would  seem  to  require  sometimes 
one  mode,  and  sometimes  the  other.  My  own  experi- 
ence teaches  me  that  my  sermons  should  sometimes  be 
written,  but  more  often  unwritten. 

A  written  sermon  will  be  more  likely  to  be  orderly. 
It  can  contain  a  greater  variety  of  material  than  one 
will  be  apt  to  carry  in  his  memory,  or  to  introduce  with 
skill  in  an  extemporaneous  discourse.  It  may  abound 
with  finer  lines  of  thought,  employ  a  more  skillful 
analysis,  and  deal  wdth  more  subtle  elements.  It  may 
be  made  more  compact,  move  in  straighter  lines,  and 
with  cleaner  execution.  But,  on  the  other  hand,  it  is 
liable  to  be  uttered  with  stale  fervor.  It  is  likely  to  be 
devoid  of  freshness,  to  lack  naturalness,  by  the  substi- 
tution of  purely  literary  forms,  and  to  be  deficient  in 
flow  and  power.  This  will  be  especially  true  of  the 
sermons  of  mercurial;  versatile  men,  whose  feelings  and 


SERMON-MAKING. 


213 


thoughts,  endlessly  changing,  cannot  long  fit  them- 
selves to  the  mold  of  the  sermon  in  which  they  have 
been  expressed,  so  that,  whatever  may  have  been  the 
inspiration  of  the  composing  hour,  the  delivery  will  be 
artificial.  Cautious  natures  —  men  who  think  slowly 
and  express  themselves  with  a  sort  of  fastidious  con- 
scientiousness —  will  find  the  written  form  of  sermon 
adapted  to  their  nature.  The  responsibility  of  preaching 
is  very  much  alleviated,  in  tender  and  sensitive  minds, 
by  the  consciousness  that  the  sermon  is  all  prepared, 
and  that  little  or  nothing  is  left  to  the  contingencies 
of  the  hour  of  speaking. 

ADVANTAGES  OF  UNWRITTEN  DISCOURSE. 

On  the  other  hand,  men  of  fruitfulness  in  thought,  of 
ardor  in  feeling,  courageous  men,  who  are  helped  by  a 
sense  of  difficulty  and  danger,  will  be  roused  by  the 
necessity  of  exertion,  and  find  their  best  powers  of  elo- 
quence developed  by  their  face-to-face  dealing  with  an 
audience. 

If  a  minister  tarries  long  in  the  same  place,  and 
would  carry  his  people  over  a  broad  field  of  instruction, 
it  would  be  almost  impossible  but  that  he  should  either 
write  his  important  sermons,  or  prepare  careful  briefs, 
which  will  demand  scarcely  less  labor.  Yet  unwritten 
sermons  are  undoubtedly  better  adapted  to  the  ten  thou- 
sand varying  wants  of  the  community  than  are  written 
ones.  There  are  certain  states  of  mind  of  transcendent 
importance  in  preaching,  which  never  come  to  a  preacher 
except  when  he  stands  at  the  focal  point  of  his  audience 
and  feels  their  concentrated  sympathy.  No  man  who  is 
tied  up  to  written  lines  can,  in  any  emergency,  throw 


214 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


the  whole  power  of  his  manhood  upon  an  audience. 
There  is  a  freedom,  a  swiftness,  a  versatility,  and  a 
spiritual  rush  which  comes  to  no  man  but  him  whose 
thoughts  are  free  from  trammels,  and  who,  like  the 
eagle,  far  above  thicket  and  forest,  and  in  the  full 
sunlight,  has  the  whole  wide  air  in  which  to  make  his 
flight. 

The  essential  necessity  is,  that  every  preacher  should 
be  able  to  speak,  whether  with  or  without  notes.  Christ 
"  spake.'"  Peter,  on  the  day  of  Pentecost,  did  not  put  on 
his  specs  and  read ;  nor  did  any  other  Apostle  when 
called  on  to  preach.  One's  message  to  his  hearers 
should  be  so  delivered  as  to  bring  his  personality  to 
bear  upon  them ;  he  should  be  in  free  communion  with 
his  audience,  and  receive  from  them  as  well  as  give  to 
them.  There  are  a  thousand  shades  of  thought  reflected 
from  the  faces  of  people.  Tliere  are  a  thousand  slight 
modifications  of  statement  which  one  will  make  as  he 
proceeds,  after  seeing  and  feeling  the  effect  of  what  he 
has  already  said.  There  are  points  of  application  which 
cannot  be  imagined  until  lie  stands  before  his  people. 

p  A  sermon  should  be  carefully  arranged,  and  the 
material  thoroughly  digested.  But,  as  in  a  great  battle 
elaborately  planned  a  hundred  contingencies  will  change 
the  detail  of  its  execution,  or  even  the  whole  plan  of  it, 
so,  in  a  sermon,  a  man  should  be  prepared  for  all  the 

(^  emergencies  which  may  occur.  For,  in  every  sermon, 
the  preacher  should  propose  to  himself  definite  ends  to 
be  gained.  A  sermon  is  not  like  a  Chinese  fire-cracker, 
to  be  fired  off  for  the  noise  which  it  makes.  It  is  the 
hunter's  gun,  and  at  every  discharge  he  should  look  to 
see  his  game  fall.    The  power  is  wasted  if  nothing  be 


SERMON-MAKING. 


215 


hit.  There  are  a  thousand  situations  where  a  written 
sermon  would  be  impossible.  There  are  multitudes  in 
every  congregation  to  whom  the  more  elaborate  style  of 
the  written  sermon  is  uncongenial.  A  written  sermon 
is  apt  to  reach  out  to  people  like  a  gloved  hand.  An 
unwritten  sermon  reaches  out  the  warm  and  glowing 
palm,  bared  to  the  touch. 

At  funerals,  at  conference  meetings,  and  in  neighbor- 
hood gatherings,  where  there  are  a  thousand  incidental 
points  to  which  a  minister  is  called  upon  to  speak,  noth- 
ing will  answer  but  unwritten  discourse.  Who  could 
go  into  a  rude  neighborhood  of  turbulent  spirits  and 
hope  to  gain  and  hold  their  attention  by  reading  from  a 
manuscript  ?  Who  can  preach  the  gospel  to  the  unlet- 
tered and  the  stupid,  when  the  point  of  the  pen  has 
been  substituted  for  the  living  fire  ?  A  physician  would 
be  ashamed  to  sit  at  the  bedside  of  his  patient,  carrying 
his  library  of  books  with  him.  His  knowledge  must  be 
such,  and  his  use  of  it  so  facile,  that  he  can,  out  of  the 
stores  of  his  own  mind,  readily  adapt  himself  to  every 
varying  phase  of  w^ant.  Tlie  preacher  is  a  physician 
of  the  soul.  With  thousand-fold  reason  should  he  be 
able,  with  adaptable  skill,  to  vary  to  every  form  of 
disposition  the  resources  of  Divine  truth. 

Besides,  the  difference  between  the  ease  and  fruitful- 
ness  of  a  minister  trained  to  preach  without  writing, 
and  of  one  who  is  bound  to  his  notes,  is  incalcula- 
ble. Tlie  task  of  writing  two  sermons  a  week  leaves 
a  conscientious  man  time  and  strength  for  but  little 
else;  whereas  a  man  trained  to  think  on  his  feet,  to 
gather  materials  while  he  walks  and  talks  with  men, 
will  be  likely  to  have  a  far  greater  liberty. 


216 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


POINTS  TO  BE  GUARDED  IN  EXTEMPORE  PREACHING. 

In  considering  the  relative  merits  of  written  and 
unwritten  sermons,  we  ought  not  to  make  ourselves 
partisans,  and  select  all  the  good  points  of  one  system 
and  put  them  over  against  all  the  weak  points  of  the 
other.  It  should  be  admitted  that  some  men  of  a 
given  temperament  will  do  better  by  writing,  although 
better  yet  might  have  been  done  by  the  unwritten  ser- 
mon if  they  had,  or  had  trained  in  themselves,  the  abil- 
ity to  execute  it.  Written  sermons  undoubtedly  tend 
to  repress  the  power  of  many  native  speakers.  Most 
men  can  be  trained  to  think  upon  their  feet,  but  by 
disuse  many  lose  the  power  God  has  given  them.  And 
for  such,  or  for  those  who  in  any  way  miss  the  right 
education,  the  written  sermon  will  be  the  best.  The 
temptation  to  slovenliness  in  workmanship,  to  careless 
and  inaccurate  statements,  to  repetition,  to  violation  of 
good  taste,  in  unwritten  sermons,  are  only  arguments  for 
a  more  conscientious  preparation  beforehand.  No  man 
can  preach  well,  except  out  of  an  abundance  of  well- 
wrought  material.  Some  sermons  seem  to  start  up  sud- 
denly, soul  and  body,  but  in  fact  they  are  the  product 
of  years  of  experience.  Sermons  may  flash  upon  men 
who  are  called  in  great  emergencies  to  utter  testimony, 
and  the  word  may  grow  in  their  hand,  and,  their  hearts 
kindling,  their  imagination  taking  fire,  the  product  may 
be  something  that  shall  create  wonder  and  amazement 
among  all  that  hear.  It  is  only  the  form,  like  the 
occasion,  that  is  extemporaneous.  No  man  preaches 
except  out  of  the  stores  that  have  been  gathered  in 
him.    As  it  is  possible  for  a  written  sermon  to  be 


SERMON-MAKING. 


217 


utterly  unstudied,  unscholarly,  repetitious,  and  inane ; 
so,  on  the  other  hand,  it  is  possible  for  an  unwritten 
sermon  to  be  ripe,  condensed,  methodical,  logical,  swift- 
moving  from  premise  to  conclusion,  and  entirely  con- 
sonant with  good  taste.  But  such  sermons  never  pro- 
ceed from  raw,  unthinking  men  ;  they  are  never  born 
of  ignorance.  And  let  me  say  here,  that,  while  noth- 
ing is  more  admirable  than  what  may  be  called  in- 
tuitions, nothing  more  effective  than  sudden  outbursts 
of  impassioned  oratory,  these  can  never  be  expected 
from  mere  nature.  Though  a  man  be  born  to  gen- 
ius, a  natural  orator  and  a  natural  reasoner,  these 
endowments  give  him  but.  the  outlines  of  himself. 
The  filling  up  demands  incessant,  painstaking,  steady 
work. 

Natural  genius  is  but  the  soil,  which,  let  alone,  runs 
to  weeds.  If  it  is  to  bear  fruit  and  harvests  worth 
the  reaping,  no  matter  how  good  the  soil  is,  it  must 
be  ploughed  and  tilled  with  incessant  care.  All  must 
work.  To  some  it  is  laborious  and  dull  like  an  ox's 
tread ;  to  others  it  is  life,  like  the  winged  passage  of 
the  bird  through  the  air;  but  each,  in  his  way,  must 
labor.  The  life  of  a  successful  minister  may  be  cheer- 
ful, yea,  buoyant.  His  work  may  seem  the  highest 
exercise  of  liberty.  It  may  be  impassioned,  facile,  and 
fruitful,  remunerating  him  as  it  goes  on ;  nevertheless, 
there  must  be  incessant  work.  That  is  not  alone  work 
which  brings  sweat  to  the  brow.  Work  may  be  light, 
unburdensome,  as  full  of  song  as  the  merry  brook 
that  turns  the  miller's  wheel ;  but  no  wheel  is  ever 
turned  without  the  rush  and  the  weight  of  the  stream 
upon  it 

10 


218 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


IDEAL  SERMONIZING. 

It  is  not,  then,  a  question  between  prepared  and  un- 
prepared sermons.  It  is  a  question,  simply,  whether  it 
is  best  to  prepare  your  sermons  by  writing,  or  so  to  pre- 
pare them  that  tliey  are  held  in  solution  in  your  own 
mind.  Which  is  the  better  of  these  will  depend  largely 
upon  your  own  position  in  society,  upon  the  special 
work  it  is  appointed  you  to  perform,  upon  your  own 
temperaments  and  attainments.  But,  considered  ideally, 
he  who  preaches  unwritten  sermons  is  tlie  true  preach- 
er ;  however  much  you  may  write,  the  tendency  of  all 
such  mechanical  preparation  should  be  towards  the 
ideal  of  the  unwritten  sermon  ;  and  throughout  your 
early  training  and  your  after  labor,  you  should  reach 
out  after  that  higher  and  broader  form  of  preaching. 

GENERAL  VARIETY  OF  SERMON  PLANS. 

Now  for  the  next  important  point.  Much  of  the 
effectiveness  of  a  discourse,  as  well  as  the  ease  and  pleas- 
ure of  delivering  it,  depends  upon  the  plan.  Let  me 
earnestly  caution  you  against  the  sterile,  conventional, 
regulation  plans,  that  are  laid  down  in  the  books,  and 
are  frequently  taught  in  the  seminaries.  There  is  no 
one  proper  plan.  You  are  not  like  a  bullet-mold 
made  to  run  bullets  of  the  one  unvarying  shape.  It 
is  quietly  assumed  by  the  teachers  of  formal  sermon- 
izing that  a  sermon  is  to  be  unfolded  from  the  interior, 
or  from  the  nature  of  the  truth  with  which  it  deals. 
That  this  is  one  element,  and  often  the  chief  element, 
that  determines  the  form  of  the  sermon,  is  true ;  but  it 
also  is  true,  that  the  object  to  be  gained  by  preaching  a 


SERMON-MAKING. 


219 


sermon  at  all  will  have  as  much  influence  in  giving  it 
proper  plan  as  will  the  nature  of  the  truth  handled,  — 
perhaps  even  more.  Nay,  if  but  one  or  the  other  could 
be  adopted,  that  habit  of  working  which  shapes  one's 
sermons  from  the  necessities  of  the  minds  to  which  it  is 
addressed  is  the  more  natural,  the  safer,  and  the  more 
effective. 

-  Consider  how  various  are  the  methods  by  which  men 
receive  truths.  Most  men  are  feeble  in  logical  power. 
So  far  from  being  benefited  by  an  exact  concatenated 
development  of  truth,  they  are  in  general  utterly  un- 
able to  follow  it.  At  the  second  or  third  step  they  lose 
the  clew.  The  greatest  number  of  men,  particularly 
uncultivated  people,  receive  their  truth  by  facts  placed 
in  juxtaposition  rather  than  in  philosophical  sequence. 
Thus,  a  line  of  fact  or  a  series  of  parables  will  be 
better  adapted  to  most  audiences  than  a  regular  unfolding 
of  a  train  of  thought  from  the  germinal  point  to  the 
fruitful  end.  The  more  select  portion  of  an  intelligent 
congregation,  on  the  other  hand,  sympathize  with  truth 
delivered  in  its  highest  philosophic  forms.  There  is  a 
distinct  pleasure  to  them  in  the  evolution  of  an  argu- 
ment. They  rejoice  to  see  a  structure  built  up,  tier 
upon  tier,  and  story  upon  story.  They  glow  with  de- 
light as  the  long  chain  is  welded,  link  by  link.  And  if 
the  preacher  himself  be  of  this  mind,  and  if  he  receive 
the  commendations  of  the  most  thoughtful  and  cultured 
of  his  people,  it  is  quite  natural  that  he  should  fall 
w^hoUy  under  the  influence  of  this  style  of  sermoniz- 
ing ;  so  he  will  feed  one  mouth,  and  starve  a  hundred. 
In  this  way  it  is,  and  especially  in  large  cities,  that 
congregations  are  sifted  by  a  certain  process  of  elective 


220 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


affinity.  Those  will  come  to  the  church  who  like  the 
style  of  the  sermon,  and  those  will  drop  out  who  have 
no  sympathy  with  it ;  and  thus  we  have  churches  of 
emotion,  churches  of  taste,  and  churches  of  philosophi- 
cal theology ;  whereas  each  pulpit  should  give  some- 
L^what  of  everything. 

The  emotions  of  some  men  are  roused  through  the 
inspiration  of  the  intellect  mainly ;  but  there  are 
others  whose  intellect,  although  it  may  be  the  channel 
through  which  the  incitement  flows,  is  not  itself  roused 
to  its  fullest  activity  until  the  feelings  come  to  inspire 
it.  We  hear  much  of  preaching  to  the  understanding 
and  of  preaching  to  the  feelings,  and  it  is  discussed 
which  is  the  better  way ;  but  in  some  men  you  cannot 
reach  the  understanding  until  you  have  reached  the 
feelings,  and  in  others  you  cannot  reach  the  feelings 
until  you  have  taken  possession  of  the  understanding. 
A  minute  study  of  the  habits  of  men's  minds  will  teach 
the  preacher  how  to  plan  his  sermon  so  as  to  gain 
entrance. 

As  it  is,  sermons  are  too  often  cast  in  one  mold. 
Week  after  week,  month  after  month,  year  after  year, 
when  the  text  is  announced,  every  child  in  the  congre- 
gation almost,  as  well  as  the  minister  himself,  can  tell 
that  it  will  be  divided  into  "  First,"  Second,"  and 
"  Third,"  together  with,  "  Then  certain  practical  obser- 
vations." But  what  would  be  thought  of  one  who 
should  seek  to  enter  every  house  upon  a  street  or  in  a 
city  with  a  single  key,  fitted  to  but  one  kind  of  lock  ? 
The  minister  is  the  strong  man,"  armed  in  a  better 
sense  than  that  of  the  parable,  and  it  is  his  business  to 
enter  every  house,  to  bind  the  man  of  sin,  and  to  despoil 


SERMON-MAKING. 


221 


him.  But  every  door  must  be  entered  by  a  key  that  fits 
that  door.  The  minister  is  a  universal,  spiritual  burg- 
lar. He  enters,  not  to  despoil  good,  but  evil.  He 
enters,  not  to  take  possession,  but  to  dispossess  evil. 
He  enters,  not  to  deprive  men  of  their  valuable  effects, 
but  to  restore  to  them  that  wliich  their  Father  left  for 
their  inheritance,  and  which  has  been  withheld  from 
them  by  the  Adversary.  He  must  seek  entrance,  in 
every  case,  where  God  has  put  the  door.  In  some  men 
there  is  a  broad  and  double  open  door,  standing  in 
the  front  and  inviting  entrance.  The  familiar  path  in 
other  cases  is  seen  to  wind  around  to  the  side  door. 
There  be  those  industrious  drudges  who  never  live  out 
of  their  kitchens,  and  if  one  would  find  them  in  ordi- 
nary hours,  he  must  e'en  go  around  to  the  back  door. 
If  one  lives  in  the  cellar,  he  must  be  sought  through 
the  cellar. 

It  is  this  necessity  of  adaptation  to  the  innumerable 
phases  of  human  nature  that  reacts  upon  the  sermon, 
and  determines  the  form  which  it  shall  take.  If  it  were 
possible,  never  have  two  plans  alike. 

It  may  be  well,  to-day,  to  preach  an  intellectual 
theme  by  an  analytic  process  ;  but  that  is  a  reason  why, 
on  the  following  Sunday,  an  intellectual  theme  should 
be  treated  by  a  synthetic  process.  If  you  have  preached 
the  truth  jy  the  ways  of  statement  and  proof,  you  have 
then  a  reason  for  following  it  with  a  sermon  that  as- 
sumes the  truth',  and  appeals  directly  to  the  moral  con- 
sciousness. A  didactic  sermon  is  all  the  stronger  if  it 
follows  in  strong  contrast  with  a  sermon  to  the  feel- 
ings. If  you  have  preached  to-day  to  the  heart 
through  the  imagination,  to-morrow  you  are  to  preach 


222 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


to  the  heart  through  the  reason  ;  and  so  the  sermon, 
like  the  flowers  of  tlie  field,  is  to  take  on  innumerable 
forms  of  blossoming.  When  you  have  finished  your 
sermon,  not  a  man  of  your  congregation  should  be 
unable  to  tell  you,  distinctly,  what  you  have  done ;  but 
when  you  begin  a  sermon,  no  man  in  the  congregation 
ought  to  be  able  to  tell  you  what  you  are  going  to  do. 
All  these  cast-iron  frames,  these  stereotyped  plans  of 
sermons,  are  the  devices  of  the  Devil,  and  of  those 
most  mischievous  devils  of  the  pulpit,  formality  and 
stupidity. 

THE  NATURAL  METHOD. 

It  is  a  good  thing  to  select  your  text  and  unfold  pre- 
cisely its  meaning  and  its  context,  and  then  to  deduce 
from  it  certain  natural  lines  of  thought.  But  this  is 
only  one  way.  A  descriptive  sermon,  an  argumentative 
sermon,  a  poetical  sermon,  and  a  sermon  of  sentiment, 
have,  severally,  their  own  genius  of  form.  I  need  not 
tell. you  that  variety  is,  in  the  best  sense  of  that  term, 
the  "  natural "  method.  In  nature,  a  few  elements,  by 
various  permutations  and  combinations,  produce  infi- 
nite varieties,  endless  contrasts,  and  constant  changes. 
Nature  is  always  fresh,  and  never  stales  ilpon  the  taste. 

Besides  all  this,  every  preacher  will  find  that  some- 
thing is  to  be  allowed  for  the  way  in  which  his  own 
mind  works.  A  man  naturally  inclined  to  mysticism 
has  his  whole  tem23erament  arrayed  against  the  anatom- 
ical method  of  sermonizing.  The  man  of  a  dry  intel- 
lectual nature,  who  sees  all  things  cold,  clear,  and  color- 
less, cannot  imitate  the  man  whose  mind  lives  under 
an  arch  of  perpetual  rainbows.    So  then,  because  the 


SERMON-MAKING. 


223 


plans  of  sermons  must  be  affected  both  by  the  nature 
of  the  truth  itself,  by  the  nature  of  the  man  himself, 
and,  above  all,  by  tlie  ends  sought  in  the  sermon 
and  the  nature  of  the  people  to  whom  the  sermon  is 
addressed,  you  will  perceive  the  absurdity  of  attempt- 
ing any  one  method  of  laying  out  a  sermon,  and  the 
wisdom  of  seeking  endless  diversity  of  method  as  well 
as  of  subject. 

SUGGESTIVE  PREACHING. 

A  respectable  source  of  failure  is  conscientious  thor- 
oughness..  It  is  true  that  it  is  the  office  of  the 
preacher  to  furnish  thought  for  his  hearers,  but  it 
is  no  less  his  duty  to  excite  thought.  Thus  we 
give  thought  to  breed  thought.  If,  then,  a  preacher 
elaborates  his  theme  until  it  is  utterly  exhausted,  leav- 
ing nothing  to  the  imagination  and  intellect  of  his 
hearers,  he  fails  to  produce  that  lively  activity  in  their 
minds  which  is  one  of  the  best  effects  of  right  preach- 
ing; they  are  merely  recipients.  But  under  a  true 
preaching,  the  pulpit  and  the  audience  should  be  car- 
rying on  tlie  subject  together,  one  in  outline,  and  the 
other  with  subtle  and  rapid  activity,  filling  it  up  by 
imagination,  suggestion,  and  emotion.  Don't  make" 
your  sermons  too  good.  That  sermon,  then,  has  been 
overwrought  and  overdone  wliich  leaves  nothing  for  the 
mind  of  the  hearer  to  do.  A  sermon  in  outline  is 
often  far  more  effective  tlian  a  sermon  fully  thought 
out  and  delivered  as  a  completed  thing.  Painters  often 
catch  the  likeness  of  their  subject  when  they  have 
sketched  in  the  picture  only,  and  paint  it  out  when 
they  are  finishing  it ;  and  many  and  many  a  sermon,  if 


224 


LECTUKES  ON  PREACHING. 


it  had  been  but  sketched  upon  the  minds  of  men,  would 
have  conveyed  a  much  better  idea  of  the  truth  than  is 
produced  by  its  elaborate  painting  and  filling  up.  This 
is  the  secret  of  what  is  called  suggestive  preaching," 
and  it  is  also  the  secret  of  those  sermons  which  are 
called  good,  but  heavy."  There  are  no  more  thorough 
sermons  in  the  English  language,  and  none  more  hard 
to  read,  than  those  of  Barrow,  who  was  called  an  unfair 
preacher,  because  he  left  nothing  for  those  to  say  that 
came  after  him.  You  must  be  careful  not  to  surfeit 
people ;  leave  room  for  their  imagination  and  spirit  to 
work.  Don't  treat  them  as  sacks  to  be  filled  from  a 
funnel.  Aim  to  make  them  spiritually  active,  —  self- 
helpful.  V 

EXPOSITORY  PREACHING. 

Without  unfolding  and  commenting  upon  the  ordi- 
nary modes  of  sermonizing,  I  pass  on  to  say  that  a  much 
larger  use  should  be  made  of  expository  preaching  than 
has  been  customary  in  our  churches.  It  is  an  admira- 
ble way  of  familiarizing  the  people  with  the  very  text 
of  Scripture.  There  is  an  authority,  which  every  audi- 
ence recognizes,  in  the  word  of  God  as  delivered  in  the 
Sacred  Scripture,  which  does  not  belong  to  ordinary 
human  teaching.  Above  all,  the  Bible  is  the  best  ex- 
ample in  literature  of  the  admirable  mingling  of  fact, 
illustration,  appeal,  argument,  poetry,  and  emotion,  not 
in  their  artificial  forms,  but  conformably  to  nature.  The 
Bible  is  sometimes  spoken  of  as  a  "  revelation  "  in  contra- 
distinction to  nature ;  but  this  is  done  by  those  who 
degrade  nature,  and  regard  it  as  something  low  and 
imperfect.    I  regard  the  Bible  as  the  noblest  book  of 


SERMON-MAKING. 


225 


nature  that  has  ever  existed  in  life.  Its  very  power  is 
in  that  it  is  an  exposition  of  nature,  wider  and  deeper 
than  any  that  philosophy  has  attained  to  ;  that  is  one 
reason  why  the  Bible  is  found,  as  philosophy  progres- 
sively ascertains  the  truths  of  nature,  to  conform  to 
them  with  singular  adaptation ;  and  that  is  a  reason, 
too,  why  the  Bible  becomes  more  and  more  powerful  as 
it  is  better  interpreted  and  its  innermost  meaning  is 
made  clear  by  the  discoveries  of  men  in  the  great  field 
of  natural  science.  The  Bible  is  'like  a  field  in  which 
is  hidden  gold.  Men  who  have  ploughed  over  and 
over  the  surface  and  raised  perishable  crops  therefrom 
have  failed  to  find  and  secure  that  very  precious  ore 
which  is  its  chief  value. 

It  will  surprise  one  to  see  what  wealth  and  diversity 
of  topics  will  come  up  for  illustration  in  discussion, 
by  means  of  expository  preaching.  A  thousand  subtle 
suggestions  and  a  thousand  minute  points  of  human 
experience,  not  large  enough  for  the  elaborate  discus- 
sion of  a  sermon,  and  yet  like  the  little  screws  in  a 
watch,  indispensable  to  the  right  action  of  the  machin- 
ery of  life,  can  be  touched  and  turned  to  advantage  in 
expository  preaching.  There  are  many  topics  which,  "  |. 
from  the  excitement  of  the  times  and  from  the  preju- 
dice of  the  people,  it  would  be  difficult  to  discuss 
topically  in  the  pulpit,  yet,  taken  in  the  order  in  which 
they  are  found  in  Sacred  Writ,  they  can  be  handled 
with  profit,  and  without  danger.  The  Bible  touches 
all  sides  of  human  life  and  experience,  and  scriptural 
exposition  gives  endless  opportunities  of  hitting  folks 
who  need  hitting.  The  squire  can  hardly  stamp  out 
of  church  for  a    Thus  saith  the  Lord." 

10*  o 


226 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


While  exegetical  and  expository  preaching  have  ele- 
ments in  them  which  attract  and  satisfy  the  scholar 
and  the  thinker,  they,  at  the  same  time,  by  a  strange 
harmony  in  diversity,  have  just  that  disconnectedness 
and  variety  of  topic  in  juxtaposition  which  seem  best 
suited  to  the  wants  of  uncultivated  minds.  I  know  an 
eminent  pastor  in  Ohio,  who,  probably,  never  in  his  life 
preached  any  other  sermon  than  an  expository  one. 
The  Bible  in  his  hands,  Sunday  after  Sunday,  was  his 
only  sermon.  Duriilg  a  long  pastorate,  he  went  through 
the  Book  from  beginning  to  end,  and  often,  and  the 
fruit  of  his  ministry  justified  his  method.  It  was 
proverbial  that  no  people  were  more  thoroughly  fur- 
nished with  knowledge,  witli  habits  of  discrimination 
in  tliought,  or  were  more  rich  in  spiritual  feeling. 

GREAT  SERMONS. 

There  is  one  temptation  of  which  I  have  spoken  to 
you  before,  but  I  must  be  allowed  to  give  you  a  special 
and  earnest  caution  on  the  subject  of  "  great "  sermons. 
The  themes  you  will  handle  are  often  of  transcendent 
greatness.  There  will  be  times  continually  recurring, 
in  which  you  will  feel  earnestly  the  need  of  great 
power  ;  but  the  ambition  of  constructing  great  sermons 
is  guilty  and  foolish  in  no  ordinary  degree.  I  do  not 
believe  that  any  man  ever  made  a  great  sermon  who 
set  out  to  do  that  thing.  Sermons  that  are  truly  great 
come  of  themselves.  They  spring  from  sources  deeper 
than  vanity  or  ambition.  When  the  hand  of  the  Lord 
is  laid  upon  the  heart,  and  its  energies  are  aroused 
under  a  Divine  inspiration,  there  may  then  be  given 
forth  mighty  thoughts  in  burning  words,  and  from  the 


SERMON-MAKING. 


227 


formative  power  of  this  inward  truth  the  outward  form 
may  be  generated,  perfect,  as  is  the  language  of  a  poem. 
Perhaps  I  should  have  saids  hoiv  sermons,  rather  than 
great  sermons,  —  sermons  adapted  to  create  surprise, 
admiration,  and  praise,  sermons  as  full  of  curiosities  as 
a  peddler's  pack,  which  the  proud  owners  are  accustomed 
to  take  in  all  their  exchanges  and  travelings  as  their 
especial  delight  and  reliance.  Often  they  are  baptized 
with  fanciful  names.  There  is  the  ''Dew^  upon  tlie 
Grass"  sermon,  and  the  ''Trumpet"  sermon,  and  the 
sermon  of  the  "  Fleece,"  and  the  "  Dove  and  Eagle " 
sermon,  and  so  on.  Such  discourses  are  relied  upon  to 
give  men  their  reputation.  To  construct  such  sermons, 
men  oftentimes  labor  night  and  day,  and  gather  into 
them  all  the  scraps,  ingenuities,  .and  glittering  illus- 
trations of  a  lifetime.  Tliey  are  the  pride  and  the  joy 
of  the  preacher's  lieart ;  but  they  bear  the  same  relation 
to  a  truly  great  sermon  as  a  kaleidoscope,  full  of  glitter- 
ing bits  of  glass,  bears  to  the  telescope,  which  unveils 
the  glory  of  the  stellar  universe.  These  are  the  Nebu- 
chadnezzar sermons,  over  which  the  vain  preacher  stands, 
saying,  "  Is  not  this  great  Babylon  that  I  have  builded 
for  the  house  of  the  kingdom,  by  the  might  of  my 
power,  and  for  the  honor  of  my  majesty  ?  "  Would  to 
God  that  these  preachers,  like  Nebuchadnezzar,  might 
go  to  grass  for  a  time,  if,  like  him,  they  would  return 
sane  and  humble  ! 

A  sermon  is  a  weapon  of  war.  Not  the  tracery  en- 
ameled upon  its  blade,  not  the  jewelry  that  is  set 
within  its  hilt,  not  the  name  that  is  stamped  upon  it, 
but  its  power  in  the  day  of  battle,  must  be  the  test  of 
its  merits.    No  matter  how  unbalanced,  how  irregular 


228 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


and  rude,  that  is  a  great  sermon  which  has  power  to  do 
great  things  with  the  hearts  of  men.  No  matter  how 
methodical,  philosophic,  exquisite  in  illustration,  or 
faultless  in  style,  that  is  a  poor  and  weak  sermon  that 
has  no  power  to  deliver  men  from  evil  and  to  exalt 
them  in  goodness. 

STYLE. 

Style  is  only  the  outside  form  which  thoughts  take 
on  when  embodied  in  language.  Style,  then,  must 
always  conform  to  the  nature  of  the  man  who  employs 
it ;  as  the  saying  goes,  "  Style  is  the  man."  In  general, 
it  may  be  said,  that  is  the  best  style  which  is  the  least 
obtrusive,  which  lets  through  the  truth  most  nearly  in 
its  absolute  purity.  The  truths  of  religion,  in  a  sim- 
ple and  transparent  style,  shine  as  the  sunlight  on 
the  fields  and  mountains,  revealing  all  things  in  their 
proper  forms  and  natural  colors  ;  but  an  artificial  and 
gorgeous  style,  like,  a  cathedral  window,  may  let  in 
some  light,  yet  in  blotches  of  purple  and  blue  that  spot 
the  audience,  and  produce  grotesqueness  and  unnatural 
effects. 

It  is  desirable  that  the  preacher  should  have  a  copious 
vocabulary,  and  a  facility  in  the  selection  and  use  of 
words  ;  and  to  this  end  he  should  read  much,  giving 
close  attention  to  the  words  and  phrases  used  by  the 
best  authors,  not  for  servile  copying  and  memorizing, 
but  that  these  elements  may  become  assimilated  with 
his  own  mind,  as  a  part  of  it,  ready  for  use  when  the 
need  comes. 

He  should  also  have  an  ear  for  strong  and  terse, 
but  rhythmical  sentences,  which  flow  without  jolt 


SERMON-MAKING. 


229 


and  jar.  Above  all  other  men,  the  preacher  should 
avoid  what  may  be  called  a  literary  style,  as  distin- 
guished from  a  natural  one ;  and  by  a  literary  style," 
technically  so  called,  I  understand  one  in  which  abound 
these  two  elements, —  the  artificial  structure  of  sentences, 
and  the  use  of  words  and  phrases  peculiar  to  literature 
alone,  and  not  to  common  life.  Involved  sentences, 
crooked,  circuitous,  and  parenthetical,  no  matter  how 
musically  they  may  be  balanced,  are  prejudicial  to  a 
facile  understanding  of  the  truth.  Never  be  grandilo- 
quent when  you  want  to  drive  home  a  searching  truth. 
--►Don't  whip  with  a  switch  that  has  the  leaves  on,  if  you 
want  to  tingle.  A  good  fireman  will  send  the  water 
through  as  short  and  straight  hose  as  he  can.  No  man 
in  his  senses  would  desire  to  have  the  stream  flow 
through  coil  after  coil,  winding  about.  It  loses  force 
by  length  and  complexity.  Many  a  sermon  has  its 
sentences  curled  over  it  like  locks  of  hair  upon  a 
beauty's  head.  I  have  known  men  whose  style  was 
magnificent  when  they  were  once  thoroughly  mad. 
Temper  straightened  out  all  the  curls,  and  made  their 
sentences  straight  as  a  lance.  It  is  a  foolish  and 
unwise  ambition  to  introduce  periphrastic  or  purely 
literary  terms  where  they  can  possibly  be  avoided. 
Go  right  ahead.  Don't  run  round  for  your  meaning. 
Long  sentences  may  be  good,  but  not  tivisting  ones. 
Many  otherwise  good  sermons  are  useless  because  they 
don't  get  on.  They  go  round,  and  round,  and  round, 
and  always  keep  coming  back  to  the  same  place. 

There  is  a  charm  in  some  styles,  an  unwearying 
freshness  and  sweetness,  which  men  find  it  difficult  to 
account  for.    I  think,  upon  analysis,  it  may  be  found 


230 


LECTUKES  ON  PREACHING. 


that  such  styles  are  based  upon  vernacular  words  and 
home-bred  idioms.  At  Pentecost  every  man  heard  in 
his  own  tongue  wherein  he  was  born.  Use  homely  words, 
—  those  which  people  are  used  to,  and  which  suggest 
many  things  to  them.  The  words  that  we  heard  in  our 
childhood  store  up  in  themselves  sweetness  and  flavor 
that  make  them  precious  all  our  life  long  afterwards. 
Words  borrowed  from  foreign  languages,  and  words  that 
belong  especially  to  science  and  learning  and  literature, 
have  very  little  suggestion  in  them  to  the  common 
people.  But  home-bred  words,  when  they  strike  the 
imagination,  awaken  ineffable  and  tremulous  memories, 
obscure,  subtle,  and  yet  most  powerful.  AVords  register 
up  in  themselves  the  sum  of  man's  life  and  experience. 

The  words  which)  from  the  cradle  to  the  grave,  have 
been  the  vehicles  of  love,  trust,  praise,  hope,  joy,  anger, 
and  hate,  are  not  simply  words,  but,  like  paper,  are  what 
they  are  by  virtue  of  the  thing  written  on  them.  He 
who  uses  mainly  the  Anglo-Saxon  vocabulary,  giving 
preference  to  the  idioms  and  phrases  which  are  homely, 
will  have  a  power  which  cannot  be  derived  from  any 
other  use  of  human  language.  Such  language  is  an 
echo  in  the  experience  of  men ;  and  as  a  phrase  in  a 
mountainous  country,  when  roundly  uttered,  goes  on 
repeating  itself  from  peak  to  peak,  running  in  alternate 
reverberations  through  the  whole  valley,  so  a  truth  runs 
through  all  the  ranges  of  memory  in  the  mind  of  the 
hearer,  not  the  less  real  because  so  extremely  rapid  and 
subtle  as  to  defy  analysis.  The  words  themselves,  full 
of  secret  suggestions  and  echoes,  multiply  the  meaning 
in  the  minds  of  men,  and  make  it  even  more  in  the 
recipient  than  it  was  in  the  speaker.    Words  are  to  the 


SERMON-MAKING. 


231 


thought  what  musical  notes  are  to  the  melodies.  As  an 
instance  of  contrasted  style,  let  one  read  the  immortal 
allegory  of  John  Bunyan  in  contrast  wifli  the  grandiose 
essays  of  Dr.  Johnson.  Bunyan  is  to-day  like  a  tree 
planted  by  the  rivers  of  water,  that  bringeth  forth  his 
fruit  in  season  ;  his  leaf  shall  not  wither.  Johnson, 
with  all  his  glory,  lies  like  an  Egyptian  king,  buried 
and  forgotten  in  the  pyramid  of  his  fame. 

GENERAL  HINTS  —  PROFESSIONAL  MANNERS. 

There  are  a  few  cautions  which  may  he;wr5Tth  con- 
sidering. Avoid  a  professional  manner  There  is  no 
reason  why  a  clergyman  should  be  anything  but  an 
earnest  Christian  gentleman.  I  shall  not  quarrel  with 
the  preacher  who  employs  a  symbolic  dress  for  some 
special  religious  reason,  but  no  man  should  dress  him- 
self simply  for  the  purpose  of  saying, I  am  a  preacher." 
The  highest  character  in  which  a  preacher  can  stand  is 
that  of  simple  Christian  manhood.  It  is  not  the  things 
in  which  he  differs  from  lus  fellow-men  by  which  he 
will  gain  power.  It  is  by  the  things  in  which  he  will 
be  in  sympathy  with  them.  There  is  great  significance 
in  that  sentence,  "  It  behooved  him  to  be  made  like 
unto  his  brethren,  that  he  might  be  a  merciful  and 
faithful  high  priest,  in  things  pertaining  to  God."  It  is 
not  a  man's  business,  then,  to  separate  himself,  by  dress 
or  by  manner,  from  the  common  people.  It  is  his 
humanity,  and  his  sympathy  with  their  humanity,  it  is 
his  sameness  with  them,  l)oth  in  weaknesses  and  in 
sins,  in  aspirations  and  partial  attainment,  that  give 
him  his  power.  The  power  of  a  preacher  is  the  power 
of  a  brother  among  his  brethren.     It  always  seems 


232 


LECTUKES  ON  PREACHING. 


to  me,  therefore,  that  the  putting  on  of  a  professional 
dress  is  the  hiding  of  one's  power.  Walk  into  your 
pulpit  as  you  would  enter  an  ordinary  room.  Don't  go 
there  thinking  of  yourself,  your  coat,  your  hair,  your 
step.  Don't  go  there  as  a  "  man  of  God."  Never  be  a 
puppet,  —  most  of  all,  a  religious  puppet.  I  abhor  the 
formal,  stately,  and  solemn  entrance  of  a  man  whose 
whole  appearance  seems  to  call  upon  all  to  see  how 
holy  he  is,  and  how  intensely  he  is  a  minister  of  the 
gospel.  Nor  can  I  avoid  a  feeling  of  displeasure  akin 
to  that  which  Christ  felt  when  he  condemned  prayers 
at  the  street  corners,  when  I  see  a  man  bow  down  him- 
self in  the  pulpit  to  say  his  prayers,  on  first  entering. 

Many  men  sacrifice  the  best  part  of  themselves  for 
what  is  called  the  dignity  of  the  pulpit.  They  are  afraid 
to  speak  of  common  things.  They  are  afraid  to  introduce 
home  matters ;  things  of  which  men  think  and  speak, 
and  in  which,  every  day,  a  part  of  their  lives  consist, 
are  thought  not  to  be  of  enough  dignity  for  the  pulpit. 
And  so  the  interests  of  men  are  sacrificed  to  an  idol. 
For  when  the  pulpit  is  of  more  importance  than  the 
joys  and  the  sorrows,  the  hopes  and  the  fears,  the  mi- 
nute temptations  and  frets  of  daily  life,  it  has  become 
an  idol,  and,  to  feed  its  dignity,  bread  is  taken  from  the 
mouths  of  the  children  and  of  the  common  people. 
There  are  few  things  that  have  power  to  make  men 
good  or  bad,  happy  or  unhappy,  that  it  is  not  the  duty 
of  the  pulpit  to  handle.  This  superstition  of  dignity 
has  gone  far  to  make  the  pulpit  a  mere  skeleton.  Men 
hear  plenty  from  the  pulpit  about  everythmg  except 
the  stubborn  facts  of  their  every-day  life,  and  the  real 
relatiou  of  these  immediate  things  to  the  vast  themes 


SERMON-MAKING. 


233 


of  the  future.  There  is  much  about  the  divine  life,  but 
very  little  about  human  life.  There  is  much  about  the 
future  victory,  but  very  little  about  the  present  battles 
There  is  a  great  deal  about  divine  government,  but 
there  is  very  little  about  the  human  governments  under 
which  men  are  living,  and  the  duties  which  arise  under 
those  governments  for  every  Christian  man.  There  is 
a  great  deal  about  immortality  and  about  the  immortal 
soul,  but  very  little  about  these  mortal  bodies,  that  go 
so  far  to  influence  the  destiny  of  the  immortal  souls. 

A  sermon,  like  a  probe,  must  follow  the  wound  into 
all  its  intricate  passages.  Nothing  is  too  minute  for 
the  surgeon  or  for  the  physician ;  nothing  should  be  too 
common  or  too  familiar  for  the  preacher. 

PROFESSIONAL  ASSOCIATION. 

Beware  of  an  exclusive  association  with  your  kind. 
It  is  a  good  thing  for  ministers  to  meet  together  to 
cheer  and  instruct  each  other,  but  there  is  danger  that 
they  will  fall  into  such  exclusive  professional  sym- 
pathy that  they  will  see  everything  from  a  ministerial 
stand-point.  It  would  be  of  great  value  to  ministers  if 
they  saw  all  the  themes  that  they  discuss  with  the  eyes 
of  common  m.en,  —  of  the  wicked  and  the  abandoned, 
of  the  weak  and  the  strong,  of  the  learned  and  the 
unlearned,  of  working-men,  of  meditative  women,  and 
of  little  children.  On  every  theme  which  the  preacher 
handles  is  turned  the  thought  of  ten  thousand  men  in 
the  community  around  him.  It  were  worth  his  while 
to  reap  their  harvest-fields  as  well  as  his  own.  But, 
chiefly,  this  universal  sympathy  with  humanity  is 
valuable  becai\se  it  produces  a  larger  sympathy  and 


234 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


a  more  generous  manhood,  and  reinvigorates  those  ele- 
ments in  the  preacher  which  ally  him  to  his  kind,  and 
from  which  he  is  to  derive  one  great  element  of  success. 

LENGTH  OF  SERMONS. 

One  word  as  to  the  length  of  sermons.  That  never 
should  be  determined  by  the  clock,  but  upon  broader 
considerations,  —  short  sermons  for  small  subjects,  and 
long  sermons  for  large  subjects.  It  does  not  require 
that  sermons  should  be  of  any  uniform  length..  Let  one 
be  short,  and  the  next  long,  and  the  next  intermediate. 
It  is  true  that  it  is  bad  policy  to  fatigue  men,  but  short- 
ness is  not  the  only  remedy  for  that.  The  true  way  to 
shorten  a  sermon  is  to  make  it  more  interesting.  The 
object  of  preaching  is  not  to  let  men  out  of  church  at 
a  given  time.  The  length  and  quality  of  a  sermon 
must  be  determined  by  the  objects  which  it  has  in 
view.  Now  you  cannot  discuss  great  themes  in  a  sliort 
compass,  nor  can  you  by  driblets  —  by  sermons  of  ten 
or  twenty  minutes  —  train  an  audience  to  a  broad  con- 
sideration of  high  themes.  There  is  a  medium.  A 
minister  ought  to  be  able  to  hold  an  audience  for  an 
hour  in  the  discussion  of  great  themes ;  and  the  habit 
of  ample  time  and  ample  discussion,  even  if  occasionally 
it  carries  with  it  the  incidental  evil  of  weariness,  will, 
in  .the  long  run,  produce  a  nobler  class  of  minds  and 
a  higher  type  of  education  than  can  possibly  belong 
to  the  school  of  dwarfed  sermonizers. 

TRUST  YOUR  AUDIENCES. 

Do  not  undervalue  the  capacity  of  the  common  peo- 
ple.  Children,  even,  will  follow  discussions  with  interest 


SERMON-MAKING. 


235 


which  seem  to  be  far  above  their  heads.  Before  I  was 
ten  years  old,  I  remember  that  discussions  on  the  subject 
of  fore-ordination,  free-will ,  and  decrees,  held  me  with  a 
perfect  fascination.  The  Bible  was  made  for  common 
people,  and  the  themes  that  are  in  it  are  comprehensible 
by  common  people  ;  and  those  sermons  which  cannot  be 
understood  with  profit  by  the  common  people  of  your 
congregation  will  probably  be  of  little  profit  to  any- 
body, not  even  to  yourself. 

While  there  is  a  principle  of  adaptation  to  be 
observed  and  applied,  it  should  be  remembered  that 
the  great  bulk  of  a  minister  s  work  does  not  consist 
in  the  unfolding  of  abstruse  problems  or  mysteries, 
but  the  themes  which  he  mainly  handles  are  those 
which  appeal  to  tlie  great  moral  instincts  and  to  that 
fundamental  common  sense  belonging  to  all  men.  You 
need  not  fear  to  carry  an  elaborate  argument  down 
to  the  common  people.  You  need  not  fear  to  address 
a  sermon  of  emotion  and  homely  application  to  the  most 
cultivated  audience.  Let  a  man  preach  in  the  city  as  he 
would  in  the  country.  Let  a  man  preach  in  the  country 
as  he  would  in  the  city.  Preach  before  a  cultivated 
audience  as  you  would  before  an  audience  of  farmers, 
and  preach  before  a  congregation  of  farmers  as  you 
would  before  a  congregation  of  students.  It  is  true 
that,  as  I  have  already  explained,  you  must  vary  your 
discourses  from  week  to  week  for  purposes  of  adaptation ; 
but  the  great  subject-matter  is  common  to  all  men. 

SUMMARY. 

The  most  effective  sermonizing,  then,  and  that  which 
is  to  be  aimed  at  in  general,  is  the  unwritten,  rather  than 


236 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHlKG. 


the  written ;  the  plans  must  be  of  constant  variety  as 
adapted  to  the  truth  preached,  the  end  to  be  gained,  the 
audience  to  be  affected,  and  the  temperament  of  the 
preacher  ;  the  sermon  should  be  rather  suggestive  than 
exhaustive  in  treatment,  exposition  of  the  Bible  holding 
a  large  place  in  your  scheme,  and  show-sermons  utterly 
avoided  ;  simplicity  of  style,  both  in  language  and  man- 
ner, is  the  shortest  road  to  success  ;  and  the  earlier  the 
preacher  learns  by  association  and  sympathy  with  his 
people  to  interest  them  in  him  and  his  work,  and  to  give 
them  always  the  best  that  he  can  do,  the  sooner  will 
he  get  upon  them  the  hold  by  which  he  shall  draw  them 
toward  God  and  the  higher  life. 


QUESTIONS  AND  ANSWERS. 

Q.  What  would  you  suggest  as  to  the  proportion  of  written  and 
unwritten  sermons  to  be  preached  through  one's  ministry  ? 

Mr.  Beecher.  —  No  general  rule  can  be  given. 
About  one  third  written  to  two  thirds  unwritten.  But 
be  sure  that  you  know  how  to  preach. 

Q.  What  do  you  think  of  the  benefit  of  using  books  of  sermon- 
plans  ? 

Mr.  Beecher.  —  They  will  help  you  when  you  know 
how  to  use  them ;  that  is,  when  you  don't  need  them. 
Before  that  time  don't  smother  yourself  with  them. 

Q.  What  do  you  think  of  the  propriety  or  advisability  of  what 
is  called  sensational  preaching  ? 

Mr.  Beecher.  —  I  am  for  it,  or  against  it,  according 
to  what  you  mean  by  it.  If  it  aims  at  a  low,  temporary 
success  by  mere  trickery,  I  don't  believe  in  it ;  but  if  you 


SERMON-MAKING. 


237 


mean  preaching  whicli  produces  a  sensation,  I  do.  The 
legitimate  use  of  real  truth  is  all  right,  no  matter  how 
much  people  get  stirred  up  ;  the  more  the  better.  In 
this  matter  you  will  not  err  if  you  are  up  to  par  in 
manliness,  neither  above  it  nor  below. 


LOVE,  THE  CENTRAL  ELEMENT  OF  THE 
CHEISTIAN  MINLSTRY. 

KNOW  of  no  single  passage  of  Scripture 
that  gives,  with  so  much  detail,  the  Apostle's 
idea  of  the  ends  and  instrumentalities  of  the 
Christian  minister,  as  that  contained  in  the 
fourth  chapter  of  Ephesians,  a  few  verses  of  which  I  will 
read  to  you,  because  there  is  one  sentence  there  that 
will  contain  the  thought  of  to-day.  ''And  he  gave 
some,  apostles ;  and  some,  prophets  ;  and  some,  evan- 
gelists ;  and  some,  pastors  and- teachers  ;  for  the  perfect- 
ing of  the  saints,  for  the  work  of  the  ministry,  for  the 
edifying  of  the  body  of  Christ :  till  we  all  come  in  the 
unity  of  the  faith,  and  of  the  knowledge  of  the  Son 
of  God,  unto  a  perfect  man,  unto  the  measure  of  the 
stature  of  the  fullness  of  Christ :  that  we  henceforth  be 
no  more  children,  tossed  to  and  fro,  and  carried  about 
with  every  wind  of  doctrine,  by  the  sleight  of  men, 
and  cunning  craftiness,  whereby  they  lie  in  wait  to  de- 
ceive ;  but  speaking  the  truth  in  love,  may  grow  up 
into  him  in  all  things,  which  is  the  head,  even  Christ 
from  whom  the  whole  body  fitly  joined  together  and 


LOVE,  THE  CENTRAL  ELExMENT  OF  THE  MINISTRY.  239 

compacted  by  that  which  every  joint  supplieth,  accord- 
ing to  the  effectual  working  in  the  measure  of  every 
part,  maketh  increase  of  the  body  unto  the  edifying  of 
itself  in  love." 

I  purpose,  tliis  afternoon,  to  speak  to  you  on  the 
love-principle  as  the  central  power  in  the  work  of  a 
Christian  minister.  Speaking  the  truth  in  love "  is 
the  expression,  and  it  is  still  stronger  in  the  original 
than  in  our  version,  because  we  have  no  word  signify- 
ing "  to  truth."  We  say  to  speak  the  truth."  Lit- 
erally, it  is  tritthing  it  in  love.  No  one,  it  seems  to 
me,  can  have  read  attentively  the  teachings  of  the 
Apostle,  and  entered  into  the  spirit  in  which  he 
worked,  without  having  seen  under  all  his  feelings 
and  experiences  the  influence  of  this  immense  love- 
princif)le.  In  him  it  took  on  a  more  enthusiastic  form 
than  it  did  in  the  Saviour.  It  was,  as  one  might  say, 
more  a  novelty  with  him.  It  was  the  eternal  state  of 
the  Saviour,  widely  diffused  and  developed,  and  like  a 
native  atmosphere,  such  as  envelops  the  whole  earth. 
In  the  Apostle  it  seems  more  like  an  intense  or  concen- 
trated inspiration.  It  was  news  to  him,  indeed,  and 
good  news.  It  inspired  evidently  and  vividly  every 
part  of  his  life. 

WHAT  IS  LOVE? 

I  think  it  is  extremely  difficult  to  give  any  definition 
of  it.  We  may  point  to  some  men  and  say  they  come 
nearer  to  it,  as  exemplars,  than  others.  It  is  not  so 
much  a  faculty,  or  power,  as  it  is  a  certain  condition  of 
the  whole  spirit,  made  up  of  the  contribution  of  several 
different  elements  of  the  mind,  having  relations  to 


240 


LECTUKES  OK  PREACHING. 


things  superior  and  to  things  inferior.  It  is  the  reli- 
gious principle,  which,  when  you  have  it  as  the  ground 
and  root  of  your  ministry,  includes,  primarily,  love  to 
God.  And  by  the  term  God  "  we  understand  whatever 
is  conceived  of  as  superhuman  in  excellence  and  in 
wisdom.  God  is  infinite.  No  man  can  crystallize  God. 
If  he  does,  his  God  becomes  an  idol  not  bigger  than 
the  man.  God  is  infinite  and  formless.  When  he  is 
really  thought  of,  it  is  by  the  contribution  of  some  of 
the  highest  and  best  of  human  qualities,  out  of  which 
and  over  which  something  flames  up  before  the  imagi- 
nation that  is  higher  than  the  reach  of  human  expe- 
rience. The  germ  may  have  been  derived  from  ob- 
servation or  experience,  but  we  recompose  these  nobler 
attributes  of  the  soul,  clothe  them  with  form,  and  call 
that  God,  —  knowing  all  the  time  that  we  cannot 
measure  him,  but  that  this  process  of  thought  and 
feeling  reveals  and  inspires  in  us  some  sense  of  that 
quality  which  we  mean  when  we  speak  of  the  Divine 
attributes.  But  the  true  sense  of  God  does  not  stop 
there.  It  includes  the  feeling  of  love  towards  this 
Divine  being  which  is  spoken  of  in  the  New  Testa- 
ment, and  the  most  glorious  choral  and  symphony 
of  which  lies  in  the  thirteenth  chapter  of  1st  Corin- 
thians. Such  a  love  embraces  all  that  is  human, —  all 
creatures  who  have  the  power  of  being  happy  or  miser- 
able, and  it  has  a  yearning  sympathy  and  desire  for 
their  good.  It  includes,  also,  a  nearness,  a  sweetness, 
and  a  desire  towards  men,  not  so  much  that  tliey  should 
love  us,  for  that  is  confined  more  nearly  to  the  re- 
ciprocating passions  of  men,  —  friendship,  for  instance, 
which  is  a  specialty  under  this  generic  head,  and  is  a 


LOVE,  THE  CENTRAL  ELEMENT  OF  THE  MINISTRY.  24:1 

part  of  it,  though  essentially  it  involves  an  element  of 
self.  But  the  charity,  or  love,  of  the  New  Testament  is 
the  going  out  of  thought,  of  feeling,  and  of  sympathy 
towards  others,  and  towards  whatever  can  receive  ben- 
efit from  us.  It  is  the  state  of  the  Creator,  and  I 
suppose  that  it  is  the  state  of  those  most  like  him, 
who  dwell  close  to  him.  It  is  the  wish  tliat  whatever 
we  are  thinking  of,  or  saying,  or  doing,  may  make 
some  one  better  and  Happier.  It  is  genial.  It  ought 
to  be  full  of  cheer,  courage,  hope,  and  it  is  full  of  bounty 
and  blessings.  It  means  happiness,  and  as  happiness  is 
greater  in  proportion  as  it  rises  from  the  lower  range 
of  susceptibilities  to  tlie  higher  moral  qualities,  those 
who  desire  to  confer  happiness  intelligently  will  do  so 
by  making  men  capable  of  being  happy,  that  is,  by 
enriching  and  developing  their  higher  nature. 

LOVE,  THE  CENTRAL  POWER  OF  THE  MINISTRY. 

You  will  find  all  the  way  through  the  letters  of  the 
Apostle  Paul  how  much  he  relied  upon  the  inspira- 
tion of  love,  how  much  it  was  the  w^orking  power 
of  his  ministry.  It  seems  to  me  that  this  is  the  dis- 
tinctive quality  that  ought  to  belong  to  every  Chris- 
tian minister.  It  is  the  underlying  force  by  which  all 
his  special  faculties  should  be  inspired.  Where  this 
exists  in  great  power,  it  will  give  a  peculiar  color  and 
quality  to  every  attribute  of  the  mind.  Even  the  most 
formal  acts  of  reasoning  will  have  a  certain  glow  im- 
parted to  them.  The  sharpest  discriminations  made 
by  conscience,  the  requisitions  of  the  most  fastidious 
taste,  the  impulses  of  fear,  the  stress  of  indignation  and 
of  anger  itself,  will  all  receive  a  tone  and  quality  from 
11  p 


242 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


love  which  will  make  them  doubly  powerful  and  doubly 
beneficent.  I  do  not  believe  that  any  otlier  temper 
tlian  that  of  love  will  carry  a  minister  through  his 
whole  work  with  so  little  wear  and  tear,  with  so  much 
inward  satisfaction.  Indeed,  it  is  the  element  by  which 
he  interprets  at  once  God  and  man.  It  is  only  wlien 
we  put  ourselves,  according  to  the  measure  of  our 
power,  into  the  same  relations  towards  man  that  God 
sustains,  that  we  are  susceptible  of  intuitions  of  Divine 
mercy  and  pity,  or  can  form  any  conception  of  how 
the  amazing  power  of  God  may  act  beneficently, 
through  the  atmosphere  of  Divine  love,  towards  things 
mean,  selfish,  and  hateful.  There  is  only  one  pass-key 
that  will  open  every  door,  and  that  is  the  golden  key^//^ 
of  love.  You  can  touch  every  side  of  the  human  heart 
and  its  every  want,  that  is,  if  you  can  touch  it  at  all ; 
and  if  you  have  tlie  power  to  bestow  anything,  love 
gives  facility  of  access,  the  power  of  drawing  near 
to  men,  the  power  of  enriching  thought,  of  weakening 
their  hungry  desires  and  appetites,  the  power  to  thaw 
out  the  winter  of  their  souls  and  to  prepare  the  soil  for 
the  seed  and  grow^th  of  the  better  life. 

A  minister  wlio  has  pure  intellection  only  to  offer  to  Jy^ 
his  people  is  like  one  who  would  in  winter  drag  a 
plow  over  tlie  frozen  ground.  He  marks  it,  but  he  does 
not  furrow  it.  He  who  has  to  make  the  seed  of  truth 
grow  in  living  men  into  living  forms  must  have  power 
to  bring  summer  to  men's  hearts,  —  light  and  heat ; 
and  then  culture,  whether  it  be  by  the  plow  or  the 
harrow,  by  the  hoe  or  the  spade,  will  do  some  good.  It 
is  this  summer-power  of  love,  first,  middle,  and  last, 
that  every  teacher  and  Christian  preacher  ought  to  seek. 


LOVE,  THE  CENTRAL  ELEMENT  OF  THE  MINISTRY.  243 

It  is  this  that  you  ought  to  seek  in  the  closet,  in  medi- 
tation, and  in  intercourse  one  with  another.  You  must 
have  a  heart  so  alive  and  full  of  genial,  sympathizing 
love  that  you  feel  yourself  related  to  everything  on 
the  globe  that  lives  and  has  the  power  of  enjoyment. 
How  this  noble  conception  has  been  felt  by  the  old 
ministers  of  New  England  !  No  man  can  read  the 
writings  of  Jonathan  Edwards,  of  Hopkins,  and  others 
of  that  school,  without  seeing  how  they  were  filled  with 
this  sense  of  doing  for  others,  and  the  desire  to  confer 
blessings  upon  universal  sentient  being.  Their  system 
was,  in  many  respects,  very  imperfect,  but,  after  all,  the 
ideal  was  in  their  mind.  They  had  a  true  conception  of 
the  all-pervading  power  of  love  in  the  hearts  of  men, 
which  ought  to  be  the  very  center,  out  of  which  the 
whole  ministry  is  to  grow. 

LOVE,  NOT  MERE  GOOD-NATURE. 

A  great  many  persons,  when  you  say  such  things  as 
these,  feel,  at  once,  "  That  is  my  doctrine.  I  do  not  be- 
lieve in  these  always  dry,  metaphysical  men,  arguing 
and  arguing  and  arguing."  Another  man  says,  "  That 
is  my  idea  about  it.  I  do  not  like  these  men  who  are 
always  combative.  I  like  a  mild,  meek,  and  lowly 
man." 

But  I  do  not  mean  any  such  thing  as  that.  I  do  not 
mean  these  lazy,  sunshiny,  good-natured  men,  who  have 
no  particular  opinions,  and  who  would  about  as  soon 
have  things  go  one  way  as  another;  who  are  without 
sharp  and  discriminating  thought,  have  no  preferences, 
no  indignation,  no  conscience,  no  fire.  I  do  not  be- 
lieve in  any  such  men.    I  like  to  see  a  man  who  has 


244 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


got  snap  in  every  part  of  him,  who  knows  how  to  think 
and  to  speak,  and  to  put  on  the  screw,  if  that  is  his  par- 
ticular mode  of  w^orking. 

This  sweet  and  beneficent  heart-quality  that  I  am 
speaking  of  is  the  atmospliere  in  which  every  other  fac- 
ulty works,  and  w^hich  is  generic  to  them  all.  It  is 
Christian  sympathy,  benevolence,  and  love.  Do  you  not 
suppose  that  love  has  anger  ?  There  is  no  such  anger  as 
that  which  a  mother's  love  furnishes.  Do  you  suppose 
that  when  she  sees  the  child  that  is  both  herself  and  him 
whom  she  loves  better  than  herself,  the  child  in  whom 
her  hope  is  bound  up,  the  child  that  is  God's  glass 
through  which  she  sees  immortality,  the  child  that 
is  more  to  her  than  her  own  life,  doing  a  detestable 
meanness,  that  she  is  not  angry  and  indignant,  and  that 
the  child  does  not  feel  the  smart  of  physical  advice  ? 
Do  you  not  suppose  that  the  child  knows  what  anger 
is  ?  I  tell  you  there  is  no  such  indignation  possible  as 
the  indignation  that  means  rescue,  help,  hope,  and  bet- 
terment. You  might  as  well  say  that  a  summer  shower 
has  no  thunder  as  to  say  that  love  has  no  anger.  It 
is  full  of  it,  or  may  be.  Has  love  no  specialty  or 
discrimination  in  removing  error,  nor  any  continuing, 
intense  regard  for  specific  and  exact  truth  ?  God  has  it, 
and  we  are  like  him.  We  are  his  children,  and  know 
it  by  that.  Love  is  simply  that  which  overliangs  all 
these  powers,  which  gives  them  quality  and  direction, 
and  gives  to  us  a  larger  power  through  these  lower 
instruments. 

And  so  a  man  who  is  purely  intellectual,  without  any 
special  sympathy  or  love,  cannot  deal  rightly  in  moral 
truth.    He  may  in  physical  truth,  because  that  is  not 


LOVE,  THE  CENTRAL  ELEMENT  OF  THE  MINISTRY.  245 


at  all  a  question  of  influence  ;  but  all  moral  truth  — 
and  with  that  you  have  mainly  to  deal  —  is  truth  that 
springs  out  of  experience.   Unless  you  have  love,  youV 
cannot  go  right  by  pure  intellect ;  while  the  intellect 
working  in  an  atmosphere  of  love  can  rarely  go  wrongy 
in  moral  things.  ^ 
You  cannot  long  go  right  where  it  is  the  sense  of 
beauty  alone  that  you  are  appealing  to.     He  who 
preaches  mainly  to  taste  and  the  sense  of  the  beauti- 
ful, he  who  sees  God  especially  in  forms  and  colors 
and  sounds,  and  all  the  sweet  elements  of  grace  in  the 
world,  has  one  portion  of  the  truth,  but  he  is  apt  to 
run  out,  through  feebleness,  into  sentimentality.  He 
lacks  that  strength,  that  power,  and  that  continuity 
which  come  from  the  real  Divine  love-temperament. 

LOVE  OF  THE  WORK. 

l^ow  it  is  to  the  use  of  this  principle  in  a  few  direc- 
tions that  I  shall  ask  your  attention  this  afternoon. 
First,  for  your  own  souls'  sake,  you  cannot  afford  to  be 
ministers  if  your  work  is  not  love-work,  if  it  is  a  bur- 
den to  you,  if  your  parishes  are  to  you  what  a  bound 
boy  is  to  the  farmer,  —  a  nuisance,  rather  than  a  help, 
and,  on  general  principles  of  humanity,  to  be  got  along 
with  in  the  best  way  possible.  If  you  are  carrying 
your  work  in  that  way,  you  liave  no  business  where 
you  are.  He  wlio  takes  tlie  wants  of  a  community  into 
his  keeping,  he  who  undertakes  to  teach  the  young,  to 
comfort  the  old  in  the  midst  of  their  earthly  sorrow^s, 
and  to  solve  all  those  endless  problems  that  are  coming 
up  day  by  day,  must  love  his  w^ork  and  his  people, 
and  be  conscious  that  his  heart  goes  out  to  them  and 


246 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


yearns  for  them,  as,  in  the  last  days  of  winter,  we  yearn 
to  hear  the  singing  of  the  birds,  and  watch  for  the  trees 
to  put  forth  their  odorous  buds,  and  spread  their  fra- 
grance through  the  air.  How  we  do  long  for  spring 
and  summer,  and  for  their  sweetness  !  The  preacher 
ought  to  stand  to  his  work  all  the  time  longing  for  the 
development  of  men  as  we  do  for  flowers,  and  as  the 
vintner  does  for  the  time  of  the  grape.  AVhen  you 
have  this  love,  how  patient  it  will  make  you,  and  how 
easy  it  will  make  the  hard  tasks  of  your  ministry ! 
How  full  of  suggestion  it  will  be  !  How  it  will  bring 
sermons  out  of  people,  and  how  it  will  multiply  the 
occasions  of  bounty !  What  a  discernment  of  clear  inter- 
pretation there  is  through  the  medium  of  sympathy  and 
benevolence,  and  how  it  carries  its  own  reward  with  it ! 

Some  men  work  from  a  sense  of  duty,  —  and  better 
that  than  nothing ;  others  work  from  various  motives ; 
but  the  best  motive  of  all  is  love  of  the  work.  Having 
that,  you  cannot  help  working.  Why  do  birds  sing  ?  . 
Because  the  song  is  in  thetn,  and  if  they  did  not  let 
it  forth  tliey  would  split ;  it  must  come  out.  It  is  the 
spontaneity  and  the  urgency  of  this  feeling  in  them 
that  impels  tlieir  utterance.  Why  should  men  work,  or 
visit,  or  preach  ?  Because  their  hearts  want  some  out- 
let, some  vent,  to  give  expression  to  the  feeling  of 
earnest  sympathy  that  "is  in  them.  Where  a  man  has 
this  strong  and  large  benevolence,  he  will  always  be 
busy,  and  pleasantly  busy. 

THE  HEALTHFULNESS  OF  BENEVOLENCE. 

And  more  than  that,  let  me  tell  yon,  there  is  nothing 
that  enables  a  man  to  last  so  long  as  the  qualities  which 


LOVE,  THE  CENTRAL  ELEMENT  OF  THE  MINISTKY.  247 

naturally  are  trained  into  this  spirit  of  true,  sympathetic 
beneficence.  All  the  acerb  feelings  grind  the  enamel 
off.  All  men  who  work  under  a  sense  of  responsibility, 
men  who  hear  the  crack  of  Conscience's  whip  all  the 
time,  and  all  those  who  are  inspired  by  the  Protean 
forms  of  fear,  easily  wear  out.  The  kindly  feelings  of 
man's  nature  have  nourishment  in  them.  They  are 
not  stimulants  alone.  They  carry  nutriment,  and  a 
man  who  is  working  good-naturedly,  with  the  sweet- 
ness of  hope  and  wdth  the  facility  of  courage  all  the 
time,  can  work  weeks  and  months  without  breaking 
down  ;  nay,  he  grows  fat  on  work.  I  hold  that  there  is 
nothing  so  wholesome  or  so  medicinal  as  brain-work, 
rightly  directed.  While  a  man  may  exhaust  his  ner- 
vous system  by  excessive  brain-work,  a  moderate  and 
reasonable  practice  of  it  is  beneficial.  You  all  know 
that  ministers  are  the  longest  livers.  I  do  not  men- 
tion that  to  prove  that  they  are  the  greatest  brain- 
workers  ;  but  a  man  wdio  works  under  a  high  form  of 
positive  benevolence,  which  brings  cheer  and  hope,  can 
work  longer  and  with  less  fatigue,  and  he  can  con- 
tinue under  intense  excitement  longer  and  with  less 
wear  and  tear,  than  under  any  other  stimulus. 

I  have  often  been  asked  by  what  secret  I  retain 
health  and  vigor  under  labors  multiform  and  continuous. 
I  owe  much  to  a  good  constitution  inherited  from  my 
parents,  not  spoiled  by  youthful  excesses  or  weak- 
ened by  over-study  ;  much  also  to  an  early  acquired 
knowledge  of  how  to  take  care  of  myself,  to  secure 
invariably  a  full  measure  of  sleep,  to  regard  food  as  an 
engineer  does  fuel  (to  be  employed  economically,  and 
entirely  with  reference  to  the  work  to  be  done  by  the 


248 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


machine) ;  much  to  the  habit  of  economizing  social 
forces,  and  not  wasting  in  needless  conversation  and 
pleasurable  hilarities  the  spirit  that  would  carry  me 
through  man)^  days  of  necessary  work  ;  but,  above  all, 
to  the  possession  of  a  hopeful  disposition  and  natural 
courage,  to  sympathy  with  men,  and  to  an  unfailing 
trust  in  God;  so  that  I  have  always  worked  for  the 
love  of  working.  I  have  cast  out  the  grinding  sense 
of  responsibility  as  uncongenial  to  the  faith  and  trust 
which  belong  to  a  Christian  life.  I  have  studiously 
refused  to  entertain  anxieties.  I  have  put  in  all  the 
forces  which  I  possessed,  as  a  farmer  puts  in  his  labor 
and  his  seed  ;  and  I  have  left  the  germination,  and  the 
weather,  and  the  future  harvest,  to  the  providence  of 
God.  In  general,  I  have  never  performed  my  work  but 
once  ;  whereas  many  others  perform  theirs  three  times, 
—  first,  by  anticipation  ;  then,  in  realization ;  and  after- 
wards, by  rumination.  In  general,  however,  it  may  be 
said  that  a  hopeful,  trusting,  and  loving  disposition 
carries  health,  and  restores  men  from  fatigue,  more 
rapidly  than  any  other.  The  acerb  feelings  are  cor- 
rosive. The  saccharine  emotions  are  nourishing  and 
enduring. 

LOVE,  A  POWER-GIVING  ELEMENT. 

But  there  are  other  things.  No  one  can  deal  with 
the  hearts  of  men  as  he  ought,  unless  he  has  the  sym- 
pathy which  is  given  by  love.  I  have  always  been 
struck  with  the  Apostle's  notion  as  to  quality  and 
quantity  of  feeling.  If  he  charges  you  to  be  hopeful, 
it  is  to  be  very  hopeful.  It  is  not  enough  for  you  to 
be  right.    You  must  be  very  largely  right ;  each  par- 


LOVE,  THE  CENTRAL  ELEMENT  OF  THE  MINISTRY.  249 

ticular  good  must  be  carried  up  to  its  ideal  form. 
Thus,  we  are  not  only  to  be  fruitful,  but  we  must 
abound  in  fruitfulness,  as  a  vine,  bearing  so  much  that 
clusters  have  to  be  cut  away  to  make  room  for  those 
that  remain.  We  do  not  know  what  Christian  quali- 
ties are  until  we  see  them  in  their  larger  forms. 
Suppose  we  knew  nothing  about  apples  except  as  we 
had  seen  them  grown  in  Siberia,  what  could  we  say 
about  pound  pippins  ?  Suppose  you  only  see  those 
poor,  mean,  and  barren  qualities  that  often  are  called 
Christian  experiences,  what  would  you  know  about  the 
depths,  the  beauty,  the  freshness,  and  the  power  that 
are  in  a  true  man,  who  is  built  after  the  model  of  Jesus 
Christ,  who  is  conscious  of  his  strength,  who  is  free, 
who  is  profuse,  generous,  and  abundant?  God  is  in 
him  ;  and  men  see  God  more  nearly  than  they  can  by 
their  own  meditation,  when  they  see  a  man  like  that. 
You  may  have  benevolence  as  a  pale  stream  of  moon- 
beams shining  into  your  study  window,  and  you  may 
sit  and  write  your  thin  sermons  in  the  light  of  that 
pale,  speculative  benevolence,  but  it  will  not  do. 

When  our  Master  was  approaching  the  last  part  of 
his  life,  when  the  cloud  threatening  the  future  was 
already  over  him,  when  he  stood  near  to  the  grave,  he 
said  to  his  disciples,  in  that  moment  of  preternatural 
anguish, "  Peace  I  leave  with  you, —  my  peace  I  give  unto 
you."  It  always  filled  me  with  admiration  that  Christ 
not  only  had  peace  for  himself,  but  enough  to  share,  with 
his  disciples,  —  ''My  peace  I  give  unto  you."  Brethren, 
every  quality  that  goes  to  make  manhood  you  must 
have  in  excess,  as  the  brooks  have  their  treasures,  mak- 
ing haste  to  empty  themselves,  to  give  room  for  that 


250 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


which  is  coming  on  behind.  You  must  have  enough 
benevolence,  not  only  for  yourselves,  but  for  your  con- 
gregation also,  to  pervade  and  to  fill  them.  This  is 
what  you  ought  to  live  for,  and  this  is  what  is  meant 
by  living  a  godly  life,  producing  not  ideas  alone,  not 
arguments  only,  but  living,  loving  manhood, —  doctrine 
in  living  forms.  It  is  what  men  ought  to  seek  for  in 
their  closet  and  in  their  daily  conversation. 

I  feel  provoked  when  I  see  liow  young  Christians 
often  try  to  build  themselves  up  into  a  Christian  life 
by  social  meetings,  so  called.  They  get  into  an  un- 
comfortable room  :  they  sit  stiff  and  dumb.  Some 
one  opens  a  Bible,  and  reads  a  chapter ;  then  somebody 
turns  around,  kneels  down,  and  makes  a  prayer ;  then 
another  chapter,  and  then  they  sing.  They  all  have  an 
awful  responsibility,  and  all  wish  they  felt  .something. 
They  get  up,  look  solemn,  and  go  out.  They  move  off 
regularly,  methodically,  and  mechanically  to  their  sev- 
eral businesses  :  and  that  is  trying  to  grow  in  grace  ! 
You  might  just  as  well  expect  to  make  a  shady  forest 
in  your  garden  with  the  beanpoles  you  had  cut  and  set 
out  in  the  spring,  as  to  make  a  Christian  man  by  such 
a  course  as  that.  It  lacks  juice,  and  its  juice  lacks 
sugar.  There  is  no  grace,  tliere  is  no  reality  to  it. 
There  is  nothing  in  it  that  God  loves,  and  certainly 
you  do  not  like  it.  AVhen  the  power  of  the  Holy 
Ghost  comes  down  upon  men,  they  grow  up  into  such 
experiences  as  those  which  ring  so  grandly  through  the 
cathedral  of  the  Bible.  You  are  called  to  liberty,  to  a 
larger  life.  You  are  called  to  more  manliness,  to  love, 
to  fervor,  to  joy  ! 

What  you  need,  to  make  your  ministry  successful  in 


LOVE,  THE  CENTRAL  ELEMENT  OF  THE  MINISTRY.  251 

dealing  with  men,  is  that  wonderful  power  which  a  true 
large,  and  fruitful  benevolence  gives.  Here  is  a  little 
penurious  whipster  of  a  man,  —  as  it  were,  made  up  of 
that  which  was  left,  a  mere  biscuit  after  the  loaf.  You 
hear  the  neighbors  say  he  is  the  smallest  specimen  of 
a  man  in  this  neighborhood."  But  if  you,  a  minister 
of  Christ's  gospel,  look  upon  him,  there  is  that  in  him 
which  ought  to  make  your  heart  yearn  and  swell 
towards  him.  Christ  died  for  him,  and  eternity  has 
registered  his  name.  Simple  as  he  is,  poor  as  he  is, 
thin  as  he  is,  unsatisfactory  as  he  is,  though  he  were 
but  a  sand-bank  among  rich  soils,  it  is  for  you  to  find 
a  way  of  culture  that  shall  bring  forth  some  beauty 
out  of  the  very  barrenness  of  his  nature.  Your  heart 
should  sympathize  with  him  in  such  a  way  that  you 
can  say,  "  I  will  add  to  him  what  he  lacks  ;  I  will  shine 
into  him  and  warm  him,  I  will  brood  over  him  and 
will  help  him.  T  will  do  it  myself."  Lay  down  your 
life  for  him.     Give  him  something  of  your  life. 

Then,  again,  there  is  a  suspicious  man,  who  is  always 
seeing  people's  faults.  He  rejoices  in  iniquity,  and  car- 
ries it  as  a  peddler  does  his  pack.  He  likes  to  sit  down 
in  the  corners  and  retail  it.  Nothing  is  so  spicy  to  him. 
He  smacks  his  lips  over  it.  He  comes  to  you  and  says, 
You  have  heard  about  the  old  deacon  up  there,"  and 
so  on.  He  goes  around  the  village.  He  is  a  turkey- 
buzzard  among  men,  picking  up  carrion  and  feeding  on 
it.  Everybody  despises  him  and  hates  him,  —  except 
the  man  who  loves.  He  feels  like  a  physician  going 
into  a  hospital  and  finding  a  patient  there  who  is  a 
mass  of  disease.  If  he  were  searching  for  a  painter's 
model,  he  would  not  look  at  such  a  man.    But,  going 


252 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


there  as  a  healer,  he  will  try  what  he  can  do  to 
relieve  the  sick  man.  You  can  manage  these  morally 
diseased  men  if  you  only  love  them.  It  is  your  busi- 
ness to  strike  such  warmth  into  a  bad  man  as  to  make 
him  believe  that  you  are  working  for  his  good.  You 
must  make  him  ''  cotton  "  to  you  and  be  glad  to  see  you, 
so  that  he  will  lay  aside  his  deviltry  when  you  go  near 
him.  Probably  he  will  not  believe  in  you  at  first,  and 
may  suspect  there  is  some  deceit  in  it  all.  He  will 
watch  you,  and  will  "  summer  and  winter  "  you.  But, 
follow  him  up,  and  by  and  by  there  will  be  a  chance 
when  there  can  be  no  mistake  as  to  your  motives. 

I  had  a  man  in  my  parish  in  Indiana,  who  was  a  very 
ugly  fellow.  He  had  a  wife  and  daughter  who  were 
awakened  during  the  revival  which  was  then  work- 
ing, and,  while  visiting  others  who  needed  instruction, 
I  went  to  see  and  talk  with  them.  He  heard  that  I  had 
been  in  his  house,  and  shortly  afterwards  I  passed  down 
the  street  in  which  he  lived.  He  was  sitting  on  the 
fence  ;  and  of  all  the  filth  that  was  ever  emptied  on 
a  young  minister's  head,  I  received  my  share.  He 
threw  it  out,  right  and  left,  up  and  down,  and  said  every- 
thing that  was  calculated  to  harrow  my  pride.  I  was 
very  wholesomely  indignant  for  a  young  man.  I  said 
to  myself,  "  Look  here,  I  will  be  revenged  on  you  yet." 
He  told  me  I  should  never  darken  his  door  again,  to 
which  I  responded  that  I  never  would  until  I  had  his 
invitation  to  do  so.  Things  went  on  for  some  time.  I 
met  him  on  the  street,  bowed  to  him,  spoke  well  of  him, 
and  never  repeated  his  treatment  of  me  to  any  one. 
We  constantly  crossed  each  other's  paths,  and  often  vis- 
ited the  same  people.    I  always  spoke  kindly  of  him. 


LOVE,  THE  CENTRAL  ELEMENT  OF  THE  MINISTRY.  253 

Very  soon  he  ran  for  the  office  of  sheriff,  and  then  I 
went  out  into  the  field  and  worked  for  him.  I  can- 
vassed for  votes  ;  I  used  my  personal  infiuence.  It  was 
a  pretty  close  election,  but  he  was  elected.  When  he 
knew  I  was  working  for  him,  I  never  saw  a  man  so 
utterly  perplexed  as  he  was.  He  did  not  know  wdiat  to 
make  of  it.  He  came  to  me  one  day,  awkward  and 
stumbling,  and  undertook  to  "  make  up,"  as  the  saying 
is.  He  said  he  would  be  very  glad  to  have  me  call  and 
see  him.  T  congratulated  him  on  his  election,  and  of 
course  accepted  his  overtures  ;  and  from  that  time  forth 
I  never  had  a  faster  friend  in  the'  world  than  he  was. 
Now  I  might  have  thrown  stones  at  him  from  the  top- 
most cliffs  of  Mount  Sinai,  and  hit  him  every  time,  but 
that  would  not  have  done  him  any  good.  Kindness 
killed  him.     I  won  his  confidence. 

THE  SUSTAINING  POWER  OF  LOVE. 

Now,  your  congregation  will  be  full  of  sluggish  peo- 
ple. Somebody  must  bear  with  those  dull  and  stupid 
ones.  You  .will  find,  what  is  a  great  deal  worse,  people 
who  know  everything,  and  yet  know  nothing,  You 
cannot  teach  them  anything.  They  are  conceited  snips 
of  men,  who  are  rushing  up  to  you,  and  taking  on 
airs  in  your  presence,  and  you  feel  like  smacking 
them,  as  you  would  a  black  fly  or  a  mosquito.  But 
somebody  has  to  bear  with  them.  If  Christ  died  for 
the  world,  he  died  for  a  great  many  ordinary  folks ; 
and  if  we  are  Christ's  we  must  do  the  same  thing.  I 
defy  you  to  do  this  on  a  plan,  or  a  purpose,  or  "  on 
speculation,"  if  I  might  say  so.  You  have  to  do  it 
because  there  is  that  in  your  heart  which  makes  you 


254 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


brother  to  such  men.  You  have  to  say,  "  He  is  worth 
bearing  with.  I  would  better  suffer  in  his  place  than  let 
him  suffer.  He  must  be  enlarged.  He  must  be  aug- 
mented, and  made  more  a  man  in  Christ  Jesus." 

Then,  again,  you  have  obstinate  men  whom  you  can- 
not start,  men  who  are  unreasonable.  There  is  nothing 
in  the  long  run  that  can  withstand  a  wise  tenderness, 
a  gentle  benevolence,  and  a  sympathy  that  melts  the 
heart  by  a  genial  fervor,  and  which  is  continued  in 
season  and  out  of  season,  in  sickness  and  in  health, 
year  in  and  year  out.  Nothing  can  withstand  that. 
How  is  the  soil  disintegrated  ?  First,  the  ground  is 
broken  down  by  the  grinding  of  the  frost,  then  come 
the  warmth  of  spring,  the  mellow  rains,  and  then  the 
after-sunshine.  In  such  ways  must  a  minister  work, 
—  first  by  attrition,  and  then  by  the  geniality  of  his 
own  soul.  You  can  make  soil  out  of  almost  any- 
thing, if  you  will  only  give  your  time  to  it.* 

LOVE,  THE  KEY-NOTE  OF  PULPIT-WORK. 

There  are,  also,  some  specialties  in  this  true  Christian 
love  and  sympathy  that  bear  upon  the  pulpit.  In  the 
first  place,  the  whole  cast  of  your  thought  and  the  sub- 
jects with  which  you  deal  are  to  bear  the  impress  of 

*  * '  But  we  were  gentle  among  you,  even  as  a  nurse  cherislieth  her 
children  :  so  being  affectionately  desirous  of  you,  we  were  willing  to 
have  imparted  unto  you,  not  the  gospel  of  God  only,  but  also  our  own 
souls,  because  ye  were  dear  unto  us.  For  ye  remember,  brethren,  our 
labor  and  travail  :  for  laboring  night  and  day,  because  we  would  not 
be  chargeable  unto  any  of  you,  we  preached  unto  you  the  gospel  of 
God.  Ye  are  witnesses,  and  God  also,  how  holily  and  justly  and 
unblamably  we  behaved  ourselves  among  you  that  believe.  As  ye 
know  how  we  exhorted  and  comforted  and  charged  every  one  of  you, 
as  a  father  doth  his  children."  —  1  Thess.  ii.  7  -  11. 


LOVE,  THE  CENTRAL  ELEMENT  OF  THE  MINISTRY.  255 

this  good  news, —  that  God  is  Love,  and  that  God  so 
loved  the  world  that  he  gave  his  son  to  die  for  it ;  and 
that  Christ  so  loves  the  Avorld,  that,  having  died  for  it, 
he  now  sits  at  the  right  hand  of  God,  a  risen  Saviour, 
to  live  for  it. 

If  you  preach  justice  alone,  you  will  murder  the  gos- 
pel. If  you  preach  conscientiously,  as  it  is  called ;  if 
you  sympathize  with  law  and  with  righteousness  as  in- 
terpreted by  the  narrow  rule  of  a  straight  line ;  if  you 
preach,  especially,  with  a  sense  of  vindictive  retribution, 
—  I  do  not  care  who  the  criminals  are,  —  you  Vv^ill  fail  of 
your  whole  duty.  There  must  be  justice,  and  punitive 
justice,  of  course ;  but,  after  all,  "  Vengeance  is  mine," 
saith  the  Lord.  It  is  a  quality  so  dangerous  to  handle 
that  only  Infinite  Love  is  safe  in  administering  it.  No 
mortal  man  should  dare  to  touch  it,  for  it  is  a  terrible 
instrument.  You  are  to  administer  all  the  great  truths, 
the  most  rugged  truths,  in  the  spirit  of  the  truest  sym- 
pathy, benevolence,  and  love. 

LOVE  MAKES  A  FREE  PREACHER. 

When  you  kindle  to  a  full  sympathy  with  God 
and  man,  you  can  preach  anything  you  please.  You 
can  say  anything  you  please ;  if  it  goes  with  a  reason- 
able degree  of  wisdom  and  a  great  degree  of  sympa- 
thetic love,  it  will  be  warmly  received.  Recollect  the 
Apostle's  manner.  When  he  wanted  to  rebuke  the 
Ephesian  Church,  he  bethought  him  of  all  the  good 
things  he  could,  for  encouragement.  "  Nevertheless, 
I  have  somewhat  against  thee,"  adds  he  ;  and  then 
he  brought  in  his  rebuke,  having  prepared  the  way 
for  it. 


.256 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHIN(^. 


Some  ministers  seem  to  feel  that  men  are  totally 
depraved,  and  that  it  is  the  duty  of  every  preacher 
to  secure  the  evidence  of  it  by  stirring  men  up  to  bit- 
terness and  resistance.  Your  business  is  to  tone  that 
down,  and  to  prepare  men's  hearts  by  skillful  address 
that  shall  put  to  sleep  these  repellent  forces  in  them, 
so  that  they  will  hear  your  message  and  accept  your 
influence  upon  the  nobler  side  of  their  minds.  When 
you  are  like  a  wise  teacher  or  an  affectionate  parent, 
and  prepare  your  congregation' for  what  you  wish,  you 
can  say  almost  anything  to  them. 

Young  gentlemen,  the  great  art  of  managing  a  con- 
gregation lies  in  this,  —  I  am  supposing  now  that  a  man 
has  a  good  substance  of  thought  and  common  sense, 
and  I  am  speaking  of  the  qualifications  that  reside  in 
the  heart  alone,  — be  good-natured  yourself,  and  keep 
them  good-natured,  and  then  they  will  not  need  any 
managing.  It  is  the  most  difficult  thing  in  the  world  to 
control  a  great  audience,  when  they  are  irritable  and 
fault-finding  and  peevish ;  and  they  will  be  apt  to  be 
so,  if  the  minister's  own  gifts  lie  in  that  direction,  and 
his  service  is  irritating  and  arrogant.  On  the  other 
hand,  if  the  ministration  of  the  pulpit  is  a  balm  to 
them,  not  by  keeping  down  their  moral  sensibilities,  but 
by  keeping  the  sweeter  and  nobler  part  of  their  nature 
uppermost,  you  can  reprove  and  rebuke,  with  all  long- 
suffering,  and  they  will  accept  it  at  your  hands. 

It  is  out  of  this  spirit,  too,  that  you  can  deal  with 
topics  that  otherwise  would  not  be  allow^ed.  Ministers 
often  think  they  cannot  preach  what  they  feel  they 
ought  to  preach.  There  is  a  reformation  going  on,  and 
it  will  affect  vested  interests,  and  there  are  men  in  the 


LOVE,  THE  CENTRAL  ELEMENT  OF  THE  MINISTRY.  257 


congregation,  involved  in  these  matters,  on  whom  one's 
influence  very  largely  depends,  and  it  would  be  danger- 
ous to  irritate  them.  One  man  is  a  factory-owner,  and 
the  whole  church  turns  on  that  pivot;  and  yet  it  be- 
comes necessary  to  preach  on  the  duties  of  employers 
to  laboring  men,  and  their  sympathies  with  working- 
men.  Capital  is  largely  represented,  and  it  is  suspicious 
and  watchful.  Now,  you  cannot  afford  to  let  this  topic 
alone ;  and  you  have  sold  yourself  to  any  man  fear 
of  whom  makes  you  silent.  Yet  you  can  discuss  any 
topic  if  you  only  love  men  enough ;  your  heart  will 
tell  you  how  to  approach  it.  In  a  neighborhood  you 
can  preach  stringent  temperance,  though  there  are 
many  in  your  church  who  are  interested  in  the  preva- 
lence of  drinking-usages.  Slavery  can  be  preached 
against,  and  so  it  could  in  the  olden  times.  Of  course 
there  are  some  who  will  take  offence,  but,  in  the  main, 
you  will  hold  your  own  and  save  others.  It  is  to  be 
done  by  being  perfectly  sweet-tempered  and  perfectly 
fearless.  A  congregation  knows  when  a  minister  is 
afraid  of  them  just  as  well  as  a  horse  knows  that  his 
driver  is  afraid  of  him. 
*  If  you  want  to  stay  in  a  place,  be  willing  to  leave  it. 
He  that  would  save  his  life  must  be  willing  to  lose 
it,  and  he  that  will  lose  his  life  shall  save  it.  If  you 
are  willing  to  go  out  of  any  parish  just  as  soon  as  they 
want  you  to  go,  and  are  perfectly  willing  to  lay  down 
your  work  to-morrow  if  they  say  so,  they  will  know  it. 
If  you  want  to  stay  very  much,  they  will  know  that 
too,  and  will  take  advantage  of  it.  Stand  fearless, 
speaking  the  truth  in  love,  —  and  in  a  good  deal  of  love, 
—  in  love  multiplied  just  in  proportion  as  the  theme 

Q 


258 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


is  critical  and  dangerous.  Be  willing  to  take  the  re- 
sponsibility of  saying  it,  when  they  attack  you  out  of 
the  pulpit,  bearing  in  mind  that  your  business  is  to 
take  care  not  only  of  yourself,  but  of  all  men.  If  one 
of  your  parishioners  beliaves  badly,  you  must  tax  your- 
self  with  his  bad  beliavior,  and  say  it  is  partly  your 
fault,  and  not  altogether  his.  If  you  take  the  stand 
indicated  by  such  instances  as  I  have  alluded  to,  there 
is  no  reason  w^hy  your  pastorate  should  not  be  long, 
and  there  is  no  reason  why  you  may  not  preach  upon 
any  subject  you  choose. 

I  recollect  one  thing,  which  I  may  have  told  you 
before,  but  if  I  have,  you  will  have  a  chance,  as  I  have 
heard  Gough  say,  to  see  whetlier  I  am  capable  of  tell- 
ing the  same  thing  twice  alike.  It  is  in  reference  to 
what  Calvin  Fletcher,  a  wise  old  lawyer  in  Indianap- 
olis, said  to  me  on  one  occasion,  and  which  has  been  a 
help  to  me  all  my  life  since.  He  said,  "  If  I  do  business 
with  any  man  and  he  gets  angry  at  me,  or  does  not  act 
right,  it  is  my  fault.  My  business  is  to  see  that  every- 
body with  whom  I  do  business  shall  do  right ;  I  charge 
myself  with  that  responsibility."  Now  you  must 
charge  yourselves,  in  the  same  wa}^  with  the  respon- 
sibility of  your  parish.  If,  after  the  lapse  of  some  con- 
siderable time,  people  get  angry  and  act  wrongly,  it  is 
in  part  your  fault,  and  not  theirs  alone.  If  people  want 
to  hear  the  truth  with  freshness  and  new  life,  do  not  go 
clucking  around  the  country,  and  say,  "  I  was  ousted 
from  my  nest,  where  I  was  brooding,  because  the  peo- 
ple have  itching  ears  and  want  novelties."  If  people 
are  discontented  with  you,  they  have  a  right  to  be  so. 

In  closing,  then,  I  urge  you  to  see  that  you  are  com- 


LOVE,  THE  CENTRAL  ELEMENT  OF  THE  MINISTRY.  259 

petent  for  all  things,  by  study,  by  the  weight  of  your 
thought,  and  by  the  skill  of  your  administration  of  the 
truth  to  men ;  but,  above  all,  and  beyond  all,  have  in 
you  the  propelling  power  of  that  genial,  yearning  love 
which  beareth  all  things,  believeth  all  things,  hopeth 
all  things."  For  "  whether  there  be  prophecies "  — 
doctrines,  teachings  —  "  they  shall  fail ;  whether  there 
be  knowledge"  —  such  partial  and  incomplete  systems 
of  thought  as  men  work  out —  "  it  shall  vanish  away." 
There  is  but  one  thing  that  stands.     "Love  never 

FAILETH." 

QUESTIONS  AND  ANSWERS. 

Q.  Would  you  have  us  preach  on  the  subject  of  the  heart 
being  *'  desperately  wicked  "  ? 

Mr.  Beecher.  —  0  yes.  There  are  some  texts  in 
the  Bible  that  I  think  it  would  be  difficult  to  preach 
from,  but  that  is  not  one  of  them.  On  the  contrary, 
only  last  Sunday  morning  I  preached  on  a  branch  of 
that  theme,  namely,  the  deceitfulness  of  riches."  I 
showed  what  deceit  men  practiced  on  themselves  in 
proposing  to  themselves  to  get  rich,  in  trying  to  get 
rich,  and  then  in  taking  care  of  the  riches  when  acquired. 
I  did  not  notice  that  any  of  my  rich  men  took  it  to 
themselves,  either. 

Q.  WovtM  you  preach  "  He  that  beHeveth  not  shall  be  damned  "  ? 

Mr.  Beecher.  —  Would  I  ? 

Student.  —  Yes,  sir. 

Mr.  Beecher. — Yes,  sir,  assuredly.  T  always  preach 
with  a  shadow.  There  is  always  an  alternative.  But 
I  do  not  need,  you  know,  to  have  a  whip  right  up  over 


260 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


the  kitchen  fireplace,  where  the  boy  can  see  it  all  the 
time.  If  you  have  given  him  one  good  whipping,  he 
will  remember  it,  and  then,,  when  you  say  "  John ! " 
that  is  enough.    There  are  a  dozen  whippings  in  that. 

These  questions  that  you  are  propounding  all  come 
on  the  supposition  that  to  preach  in  a  spirit  of  love 
means  that  there  is  to  be  no  punishment.  It  does  not 
mean  any  such  thing.  The  spirit  of  love  carries  every- 
thing with  it.  It  carries  punishment  with  it,  but  in  a 
qualified  form,  even  as  love  carries  it ;  though  not  as 
fear  does,  nor  as  conscience  does,  nor  as  pure  intellect 
does. 

Q.  Where  is  the  spring  from  which  a  man  is  to  obtain  the  love 
and  sympathy  you  speak  of  ? 

Mr.  Beecher.  —  If  a  man  knows  what  he  wants  and 
what  he  is  aiming  at  in  his  every-day  life,  he  must  get 
it  just  as  he  would  seek  any  other  educational  develop- 
ment. If  you  desire  a  musical  education,  what  do  you 
do  ?  You  practice  for  that.  If  you  wish  to  attain 
knowledge  of  Art,  what  do  you  do  ?  You  put  your- 
self under  a  master,  and  work  for  form  and  color.  If 
you  want  devotion  in  the  sense  of  rapt  meditation, 
then  you  seek  that.  If  you  want  it  in  the  sense  of 
exhilaration  and  of  bounding  joyousness,  you  will  seek 
that.  But  if  you  want  religion  in  a  sense  of  genial 
sympathy  with  men,  you  will  seek  it  by  being  with 
men.  And  when  you  can  bring  yourself  to  lay  aside 
things  that  you  very  mucii  wish  to  do,  things  that  are 
naturally  strong  in  you,  for  the  sake  of  doing  some- 
thing that  you  do  not  want  to  do,  or  being  some- 
thing that  you  do  not  want  to  be,  on  account  of  other 
persons,  who  are  neither  very  agreeable  nor  very  re- 


LOVE,  THE  CENTRAL  ELEMENT  OF  THE  MINISTRY.  261 

warding,  and  who,  perhaps,  will  never  know  of  your 
sacrifice,  then  you  will  have  shown  yourself  fit  for  your 
work,  and  can  say,  "  I  lay  down  a  part  of  my  life  for 
that  man."  That  is  the  way  we  must  minister  to  our 
congregations.  Christ  says,  "I  am  the  way.'*  Make 
a  road  for  men's  feet  upon  yourself.  Pave  it  with 
your  most  precious  things.  Do  it  a  few  times, 
and  I  do  not  think  you  will  have  to  ask  me  any 
other  questions  as  to  the  way  to  cultivate  that  spirit. 
Practice  loving  men  if  you  want  to  have  the  power 
of  love. 

Q.  Do  you  think  that  a  man  who  is  by  nature  very  cold  and 
unsympathetic  should  preach,  or  go  into  the  ministry  1 

Mr.  Beecher.  —  No ;  you  might  as  well  take  an 
icicle  to  warm  an  invalid's  bed  with. 

Q.  Was  not  Jonathan  Edwards,  when  preaching  the  justice  of 
God,  moved  by  love  ] 

Great  as  Edwards  truly  was,  and  far  in  advance  of 
his  age  in  many  respects,  he  yet  was  unconsciously  un- 
der the  grossly  materializing  theological  habits  of  the 
mediseval  schools.  The  monarchial  figures  of  govern- 
ment in  the  Bible,  and  the  figures  of  material  punish- 
ment, are  full  terrible  enough.  But  to  employ  the 
imagination,  as  Edwards  did,  in  inventing  new  horrors 
for  hell,  above  all,  in  attempting  to  picture  the  Divine 
Heart  as  so  in  love  with  justice  that  it  rejoices  in  the 
merited  sufferings  of  the  wicked,  was  a  sad  perversion 
of  the  functions  of  imagination.  In  some  respects 
Edward's  terrific  sermon,  Sinners  in  the  Hands  of  an 
Angry  God,"  may  be  ranked  with  Dante's  Inferno  or 
Michael  Angelo's  painting  of  the  "  General  Judgment." 


262 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


But  who  can  look  upon  the  detestable  representations 
of  the  painter,  or  the  hideous  scenes  of  the  Florentine 
poet,  without  a  shudder  of  wonder  that  they  should  have 
ever  come  from  such  tender  and  noble  hearts  ?  They 
were  dreams  of  dark  days.  The  doom  of  wickedness 
is  dreadful  enough,  without  the  hideous  materialism 
and  the  horrible  buffoonery  of  justice  which  prevailed 
in  a  former  day. 

Q.  Is  there  not  something  analogous  to  Divine  judgment  in 
the  punishment  of  criminals  by  capital  and  other  punishment  ? 

Punishments  follow  the  violations  of  natural  law. 
But  Nature  is  blind.  It  makes  no  discriminations.  It 
takes  no  account  of  motives.  It  has  no  palliations  and 
no  pity. 

When  a  father  punishes,  he  takes  account  of  the  age, 
inexperience,  temptations,  and  motives  of  the  child,  and 
grades  his  penalties,  or  wholly  pardons,  as  will  best 
effect  his  end,  the  child's  good.  Governments  under- 
take to  do  the  same.  But  magistrates  are  hampered. 
Their  knowledge  is  imperfect.  The  law  fixes  arbitrary 
processes  of  procedure.  Punishments  are  often  too 
lenient  or  too  severe.  They  are  determined  full  as 
much  by  the  weakness  of  government  as  by  the  desert 
of  the  victim.  Governments  are  but  clumsy  machines, 
and  public  justice  is  but  a  poor  imitation  of  Divine 
justice.  We  should  be  cautious  in  employing  the 
analogies  derived  from  material  laws,  or  from  human 
civil  governments,  in  interpreting  the  method  of  One 
who  knows  perfectly  all  things,  who  is  unlimited  in 
power,  and  who  is  not  impelled  by  sheer  weakness  to' 
8uch  expedients  as  are  resorted  to  by  human  tribunals. 


LOVE,  THE  CENTRAL  ELEMENT  OF  THE  MINISTRY.  263 

I  think  that  the  analogies  of  parental  government,  in 
a  human  household,  in  which  penalties  are  administered 
in  the  spirit  of  love,  and  for  the  child's  good,  are  far 
nearer  the  truth  than  those  derived  from  the  example 
of  civil  governments  or  artificial  tribunals. 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHmG. 


SECOND  SERIES. 


SOCIAL  AND  RELiaiOtrS  MACHINERY  op  the  CHURCH. 


OOITTEKTS. 


Lecture  Page 

I.  Choosing  the  Field      .   1 

The  Foundation  Principle   3 

Parish  or  Mission       .......  4 

Ideas  versus  Folks   .       .       .       .       .       .       .  4 

Pleas  for  Soft  Places   .......  5 

The  Secret  of  Success   7 

Building  in  a  new  Field   8 

What  is  a  Church  ?         .       .       .       .       .       .  10 

The  First  Step   11 

The  Preacher's  Personality      .       .       .       .       .  11 

Reflex  Influence  and  Education     .       .       .       .  .13 

Elements  of  Power  gained  —  Creativeness  —  Reality  .  14 
Individuality       .       .       .       .       .       .       .  .15 

Work  from  the  Bottom  upward        .       .       .       .  16 

An  Apostolic  Exemplar   17 

The  Power  of  Christian  Heroism      .       .       .       .  19 

The  Need  of  To-day   20 

Mission-Work  the  best  Training       ....  21 

Questions  and  Answers        ......  21 

II.  Prayer  25 

Changed  Position  of  the  Church  .  .  .  .  .26 
Growth  of  other  Professions  in  Learning  ...  26 

The  Spread  of  Letters  27 

The  Church  one  Force  among  many  ....  29 


iv 


CONTENTS. 


The  Function  of  the  Pulpit  31 

The  Minister's  Power  32 

Spiritual  Perspective    .       .       .       .       .       .  .33 

Prayer  as  an  Element  of  Preaching  .       .       .       .  35 

What  is  Prayer  ?         .......  37 

Teaching  Men  to  pray  38 

The  Elements  of  Prayer  42 

Making  Prayer  attractive  43 

Liberty  in  Prayer  .  .  .  .  ,  .  .44 
Exaltation  in  Prayer       ......  45 

Personal  Habit  and  Public  Duty  47 

Prayer  the  Secret  of  Strength  49 

Questions  and  Answers        .       .       .       .       .  .50 

III.  The  Prayer-Meeting  :  its  Methods  and  Benefits  .  53 

The  Democratic  Theory       ......  54 

Power  of  Individual  Experiences      .       .       .       .  55 

The  Voice  of  the  Chm-ch      .       .       .       .       .  .57 

The  Prayer-Meeting  promotes  Fellowship  ...  59 
It  discourages  Censorious  Judgment     .       .       .  .60 

It  cherishes  Mutual  Helpfulness       .       .       .       .  61 

It  discovers  Mutual  Needs    ......  62 

It  develops  Power  in  the  Congregation  ...  64 
It  discloses  Gifts  and  Graces        .       .       .       .  .65 

Women  to  take  Part  66 

The  Prayer-Meeting  makes  Truth  Personal   .       .  .69 

It  attracts  Outsiders  71  ' 

The  Effect  on  Spectators  72 

Questions  and  Answers    .       .       .       .       .       .  75 

IV.  The  Prayer-Meeting  :  its  Helps  and  Hindrances     .  81 

Hard  Work  for  the  Minister   81 

Difficulty  of  gathering  the  People         .       .       .  .83 

The  Folly  of  Scolding   83 

How  to  start  Prayer-Meetings  84 

Poverty  of  Material   86 

Need  of  wise  Leadership      .       ...       .       .  .87 

Stale  Speakers  and  Speeches   87 


CONTENTS. 


V 


The  Minister  to  train  himself   90 

Let  every  Meeting  take  its  own  Shape     .       .       •  91 

Feeling  cannot  be  forced    ......  92 

How  Feeling  is  developed      .       .       .       .       .  95 

Uselessness  of  mere  Exhortation  .       .       .       .  .95 

Flies  in  the  Ointment   96 

Do  not  be  Fastidious  .......  99 

The  Need  of  Catholicity .       .       .       .       .       .  100 

Begin  and  end  promptly   102 

Cultivate  the  Social  Element   103 

Small  Rooms  the  Best   104 

Let  there  be  Variety  '    .  105 

Importance  of  Singing   105 

Summing  up        .......  106 

Questions  and  Answers      .       .       .       .       .  .107 

"V>  Relations  of  Music  to  Worship      ....  114 

The  Minister's  Duty  115 

Music  the  Preacher's  Prime  Minister      .       .       .  116 

Church  Music,  —  the  Organ  117 

Function  of  the  Organ, — the  Opening  ,  .  .  120 
The  Hymn  Accompaniment       .       .       .       .  .121 

The  closing  Voluntary  123 

Organists  .        .        .       .       .       .       .       .  .124 

True  Organ  Music  125 

The  Choir  126 

Congregational  Singing  128 

Plymouth  Church  130 

How  to  promote  general  Singing  .  .  .  .  .  131 
Fellowship  and  Song  help  each  other  .  .  .  .133 
The  Choice  of  Hymns    .       .       .       .       .       .  134 

Prayer-Meeting  Music  137 

Questions  and  Answers  .       .       .       .       .       .  139 

VL  Development  of  Social  Elements       ....  146 

Pastoral  Visiting  .......  146 

Modern  Reasons  for  it       .       .       .       .       .  .147 

Importance  of  knowing  the  People         .       .       .  149 


vi  CONTENTS. 

Freedom  from  Class  Influences   .....  149 

Gaining  the  Confidence  of  People   .       .       .       .  150 

Two  Special  Conditions  for  Visiting    .       .       .  .151 

Hard  Fields   152 

Heart- Work  instead  of  Head- Work    .       .       ,  .154 

General  Social  Amenity  among  Church-Members     .  155 

Imperfect  Kinds       .       .       .       .       .       .  .156 

The  True  Practical  Plane   158 

Provision  for  Social  Gatherings  .       .       .       .  .159 

Picnics         ........  160 

The  Church  should  be  a  Household     .       .       .  .161 

The  right  Use  of  Theology   162 

The  Supremacy  of  Spiritual  Qualities  .       .       .  .163 

Sunday-Schools     .......  164 

How  Children  should  be  taught          .       .       .  .165 

Make  Religion  Joyful  to  Children  .       .       .       .  167 

Questions  and  Answers      .       .       ,       .       .  .170 

VII.  Bible-Classes  —  Mission  Schools  —  Lay  Work  .  179 
Importance  of  Bible-Classes  .  .  .  .  .181 
Studying  the  Bible  as  a  Whole  .  .  .  .  182 
Various  Methods  of  Bible  Study  .  .  .  .183 
Advantage  of  Personal  Teaching  .  .  .  .  184 
Cause  of  the  Prosperity  of  Plymouth  Church       .  .190 

Mission  Schools  191 

Where  to  establish  Missions  191 

The  School  not  to  become  a  Church       .       .       .  192 

Benefit  to  Teachers  198 

Church  Selfishness        ......  194 

Lay  Preaching  197 

Work  in  one's  own  Field  199 

Young  Men's  Christian  Associations  .  .  .  .201 
Questions  and  Answers  203 

VIII.  The  Philosophy  or  Revivals  210 

Two  Extremes  of  Opinion  210 

The  Historic  View    .       .       .       .       .       .  .211 

The  Revival  Element  in  Judaism    .       .       .       .  211 

Revivals  in  Christ's  Ministry  213 


CONTENTS.  vii 

Eevivals  in  Modern  Time   214 

The  Psychological  Explanation  .       .       .       .  .215 

Accepting  Nature's  Laws       .       .       .       .       .  219 

Regular  Institutions  Inadequate  .....  220 

Churches  themselves  need  reviving         .       .       .  221 

Needs  of  those  without  the  Church     ....  222 

Fanaticism :  how  prevented    .       .       .       .       .  222 

Life  better  than  Death   223 

Religious  Excitement  not  Dangerous      .       .       .  225 

High  Feeling  and  Clear  Seeing   228 

Religious  Insanity   228 

Revivals  raise  the  Tone  of  Church  Piety     ,       .       .  229 

Questions  and  Answers  ......  231 

IX-  Revivals  subject  to  Law   240 

The  Divine  Spirit  not  Capricious    ....  244 

Revivals  under Ihe  Law  of  Cause  and  Elfect        .       .  248 

What  is  Nature  ?   249 

Physical  Natui-e  not  Ignoble      .       .       .  *    .       .  250 

The  Science  of  Religion   254 

Dependence  on  God  not  given  up        .       .       .  .255 

What  is  a  Revival  ?......  256 

The  Awakening  of  Conscience   257 

The  Sense  of  Danger   258 

The  Struggle   259 

The  Victory   260 

How  to  produce  these  Results    .       .       .       .  .261 

Questions  and  Answers   264 

X.  The  Conduct  of  Revivals   273 

Effect  of  Revivals  within  the  Church      .       .       .  274 

Born  again  .275 

Where  to  begin  Revival  Work       .       .       .       .  277 

Preparation  in  the  Preacher   279 

Si)ecial  Kind  of  Preaching  required        .       .       .  282 

Frequency  of  Services   283 

Courage  gives  Strength   285 

Do  not  work  by  Authority   288 


viii 


CONTENTS. 


Variety  of  Methods       .       .    •  .       .       .       .  289 

Protracted  Meetings  290 

Inquiry -Meetings  .......  293 

Camp-Meetings  293 

Evangelists   ,       .  294 

Questions  and  Answers      .       .       .  .  .296 

KI.  Bringing  Men  to  Christ  302 

Tlie  Old  and  the  New  Practice       ....  303 

Diverse  Personal  Elements  306 

Degrees  of  Intensity  307 

Practical  Influences  to  be  used    .....  309 

The  Apostolic  Theory  311 

Change  of  Life  the  real  Aim  312 

Differences  of  Disposition  .  .  .  .  .  313 
Conviction  only  a  Means  to  Conversion  ,  .  .314 
Present  Christ  as  the  Standard  .  .  .  .  316 
Help  Men  to  actively  choose      .       .       ,       .  .316 

Be  Specific,  not  Vague  317 

The  two  Elements  of  Action      .       .       .       .  .318 

The  Ideal  Manhood  321 

Varied  Experiences    .       .       .       .       .       .  .322 

After  Conversion  326 


Lectures  oi^  PEEACHma 


I. 

CHOOSING  THE  FIELD. 

IST  returning,  young  gentlemen,  after  a  year's  ab- 
sence, it  would  hardly  be  possible  that  I  should 
not,  in  some  parts  of  the  several  lectures 
which  I  shall  give,  have  occasion  to  touch 
again  many  of  the  topics  which  came  up  incidentally 
during  the  first  course  of  lectures.  And  yet  it  will  be 
iDy  effort  to  pass  over  an  entirely  different  field.  And, 
without  rigidly  restricting  myself  to  it,  I  propgse  to 
consider  the  auxiliary  influences  which  are  requisite  to 
the  preacher's  life ;  those  institutions  and  various  in- 
struments in  the  church  and  out  of  the  church  by 
which  he  will  prepare  himself  as  a  preacher,  or  reap 
and  secure  the  fruit  of  his  preaching. 

I  purpose  in  this  introductory  lecture  to  consider  the 
influence  upon  a  man's  preaching  of  his  primary  choice 
of  a  place.  That  will  involve  more  than  seems  upon 
the  mere  statement. 

I  apprehend  that  when  the  mind  is  called  to  the 
choice  of  a  profession,  it  acts  usually  under  influences 

VOL.  II.  1  A 


2 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


that  are  more  sentimental  —  more,  in  the  proper  sense 
of  that  term,  romantic  —  more  purely  spiritual,  than 
when  it  comes  afterwards  to  act  upon  the  choice  of  a 
place  in  which  to  exercise  the  profession.  A  man 
perhaps  considers  the  various  avenues  of  life,  asks 
himself  into  which  of  them  he  shall  throw  his  life- 
forces.  A  great  variety  of  influences  act  upon  him  ; 
but  if  he  is  in  the  early  stage  of  religious  enthusiasm, 
or  if  he  has  been  bred  in  a  household  where  all  the 
anticipations  of  father  and  mother  have  pointed  in  one 
way,  then,  when  he  determines  to  be  a  minister,  it  is 
oftentimes  the  mere  ratification  of  a  sort  of  vague  and 
general  expectation.  Or,  if  he  be  late  brought  into  ttie 
kingdom  of  spiritual  realities,  there  is  a  glow  and  an 
enthusiasm  upon  him,  under  which  he  determines  to 
become  a  preacher  of  the  gospel  of  Christ. 

Now,  one  of  the  incidental  evils  that  unfortunately 
attend  a  laborious  preparation  for  the  ministerial  work 
is  the  toning  down  of  that  generous  and  enthusiastic 
religious  feeling ;  so  that  when  one  has  studied  assidu- 
ously for  two  or  three  years,  though  he  may  know  a 
great  deal  more,  and  in  some  respects  his  Christian 
character  may  have  rounded  out  and  become  more 
symmetrical,  he  is  very  apt .  to  have  more  consideration 
of  secular  things.  He  thinks  more  of  things  as  they 
are,  and  gains  or  loses  by  the  process,  according  to  the 
mode  in  which  it  is  carried  out.  For  when  a  man  asks 
himself,  now  near  the  end  of  his  course  of  study, 
"  What  shall  I  do  ?  Where  shall  I  go  ?  Where  shall 
I  settle  ? "  there  begin  to  arise  a  multitude  of  con- 
siderations which  did  not  at  all  affect  his  mind  when 
he  chose  the  profession  of  preaching ;  and  considera- 


CHOOSING  THE  FIELD. 


3 


tions,  too,  which,  while  they  are  not  formally  objec- 
tionable, often  do  very  great  mischief. 

THE  FOUNDATION  PRINCIPLE. 

The  presumption,  I  think,  in  every  case,  —  it  will 
have  its  exceptions,  but  ordinarily  the  presumption  in 
the  case  of  every  young  man  about  entering  the  field 
for  preaching  is  that  he  should  go  luhere  preaching 
is  needed  most,  and  not  where  he  himself  will  be  best 
off.  He  who  follows  the  example  of  Christ  and  the 
Apostles  most  nearly,  —  not  in  the  letter  but  in  the  sub-" 
stance,  in  the  spirit,  —  surely  cannot  be  far  from  right. 
If  there  be  any  example  which  is  ascertained,  it  is 
that  "  He  who  was  ricli  for  our  sakes  became  poor,  that 
we  through  his  poverty  might  become  rich."  If  there 
was  any  one  point  that  Paul  emphasized,  it  was  that 
he  would  not  boast  of  what  had  been  done  by  the  Spirit 
of  God  through  other  men's  labors,  —  how  the  gospel 
had  been  preached  around  through  extensive  regions, — 
but  would  glory  in  that  which  he  himself  had  been 
permitted  to  do,  laying  his  own  foundations,  and  not 
building  on  those  of  other  men.  He  gloried  in  going 
where  none  had  been  before  him,  where  the  world  was 
new,  where  the  hardships  were  apparent,  where  other 
men  perhaps  would  shrink  from  bearing  the  burdens 
that  he  had  the  power  and  the  spirit  to  bear.  And  he 
who  goes  where  men  need  him  most,  follows  closely 
the  example  and  the  spirit  of  his  Master.  That  is  the 
spirit  of  the  gospel  of  Christ :  to  take  care  first  of  those 
that  most  need  care,  and  to  do  the  most  for  them  that 
lack  the  most ;  to  care,  not  for  those  that  are  already 
well  helped,  but  for  those  that  are  despised  and  ready 
to  perish. 


4 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


PARISH  OR  MISSION. 

So  that  the  presumption  is,  if  the  spirit  of  the  Mas- 
ter is  to  be  the  guide,  that  men  should  go  either  into 
fields  at  home  that  are  low  down  and  require  hard 
work,  or  into  the  remoter  regions  that  may  be  called 
mission-fields.  And  the  question  may  be  summed  up 
in  these  two  words  :  Will  you  choose  a  parish,  or  a 
mission  ?  And  when  I  say  "  mission,"  I  do  not  mean 
a  foreign  mission,  necessarily.  Will  you  take  work 
that  is  fresh  to  your  hand,  where  you  will  have  to  be 
creative,  or  will  you  take  that  which  requires  simple 
superintendence  and  already  has  its  course,  which  you 
have  to  supervise  merely,  as  an  engineer  runs  an  en- 
gine already  built  ? 

IDEAS  versus  folks. 

A  great  many  considerations  >vou]d  incline  one  to  go 
into  the  mission-field.  But,  after  all,  there  are,  I  think, 
nine  men  who  go  to  parishes  where  there  is  one  that 
goes  to  a  new  and  open  field.  For  when  a  man  has 
finished  his  studies  he  is  full  of  ideas,  —  full  of  new 
ideas.  "  Well,  ought  he  not  to  be  ? "  Yes  ;  but  he 
loves  his  ideas.  "  Well,  ought  he  not  to  love  his 
ideas  ? "  Yes,  but  he  loves  ideas  more  than  he  does 
folks  ;  —  and  that  is  heresy,  —  flat !  He  has  got  a 
system,  and  he  wants  to  try  it.  He  has  got  some  ser- 
mons, —  he  wants  to  see  how  they  will  fly  !  He  goes 
out  with  the  feeling  of  the  theologian  ;  but  the  feeling 
that  should  send  every  man  into  the  field  to  work,  is 
sympathy  with  man.  That  is  the  whole  of  the  gospel, 
in  a  word.  Divine  purity,  divine  knowledge,  divine 
power,  have  a  compassion  for  imperfect,  sinful,  lost. 


CHOOSING  THE  FIELD. 


5 


wretched  men ;  and  he  is  the  true  minister  who  has 
that  compassionate  sympathy,  and  subordinates  every- 
thing else  as  the  instrument  of  it.  But  when  young 
men  first  come  out  of  the  seminary,  they  are  very  apt  to 
be  more  in  sympathy  with  ideas  than  with  people,  and 
so  they  want  to  go  where  their  ideas  will  have  a  free 
course.  "  What  could  I  do  with  all  my  sermons,  if  I 
were  to  go  out  into  the  backwoods  where  they  won't  let 
me  read  a  sermon  ?  What  could  I  do  with  all  my 
arguments,  my  statements,  my  nicely  put  questions 
and  answers,  among  a  people  absolutely  uncultivated  ? " 

PLEAS  FOR  SOFT  PLACES. 

And  next  comes  in  this  thought,  which  is  the 
thought  of  ambition  :  I  have  taken  three  years  to 
prepare  myself  for  college,  and  have  worked  hard ;  I 
have  been  four  years  in  college,  —  that  is  seven  ;  and 
three  years  in  the  theological  school, —  that  makes  ten 
years  that  I  have  spent.  I  have  improved  my  time ; 
and  now  am  I  going  to  bestow  myself  upon  a  field  that 
is  not  big  enough  to  hold  the  half  of  me  ?  Is  it  duty  ? 
Ought  not  a  man  to  put  himself  in  a  field  where  all 
his  powers  and  all  his  stores  of  knowledge  will  have  an 
opportunity  of  being  developed  ?  And  why  should  he 
tuck  himself  away  in  a  corner  ?  Why  should  he  go 
into  a  field  where  there  will  be  but  one  part  in  ten 
that  he  can  make  any  use  of?"  And  so  the  man 
deceives  himself  under  the  plea  of  conscience,  —  that 
he  is  bound  to  bestow  his  goods  in  a  larger  barn  than 
he  would  get  if  lie  went  into  a  poor  and  needy  place. 

Then  comes  in  also  very  seductively  the  vanity  of 
friends,  which  so  easily  finds  a  nest  in  our  own  vanity 


6 


LECTUKES  ON  PKEACHING. 


wherein  to  lay  its  eggs.  "  Father  has  been  poor,  and 
he  has  'scrimped'  himself  and  the  whole  family  to 
get  me  through  my  course."  And  the  father  himself 
feels  it.  He  says,  "  I  have  sacrificed  everything  for 
this  boy,  and  he  has  had  a  hard  time.  He  has  lived 
close  to  the  bone ;  now  he  has  got  through.  Every  one 
says  he  is  one  of  the  most  promising  young  men  that  ever 
went  from  this  county ;  he  has  seen  hard  times  enough. 
It  is  time  he  should  have  an  easier  place.  He  has  felt 
so  much  of  poverty,  he  would  better  go  up  to  such  or 
such  a  church,  where  he  can  have  a  good  salary."  They 
want  to  take  a  turn  and  find  a  larger  place,  where  the 
boy  can  do  good  and  enjoy  himself  If,  on  the  other 
hand,  the  father  be  rich,  he  says,  "  But  my  son  has 
been  brought  up  as  a  gentleman's  son,  and  he  is  not 
used  to  these  things ;  it  is  becoming  that  he  should 
have  a  place  in  accordance  with  his  social  surround- 
ings." Whether  he  is  rich  or  whether  he  is  poor,  eacli 
one  wants  to  get  a  good  parish. 

Then  again  comes  in  with  still  greater  force  the 
thought,  I  have  been  more  blest,  probably,  than  any 
man  ever  was  in  the  world,  in  that  she  has  consented ;  I 
have  now  the  prospect  of  possessing  the  fairest,  dearest 
woman  that  ever  was  created,  and  I  don't  propose  to 
take  her  into  one  of  these  rugged  fields :  a  man  ought 
to  have  some  foresight ;  I  mean  to  go  into  a  place 
where  I  can  support  her."  And  so  Love  pleads  for  a 
home  parish  with  a  good  income. 

And  then  —  and  I  think  it  probably  the  best  plea  of 
the  whole  —  the  young  man  says,  "  I  liave,  in  spite  of 
economy  and  suffering,  run  myself  very  deeply  in  debt 
for  my  education,  and  if  I  go  now  into  a  barren  field, 


CHOOSING  THE  FIELD. 


7 


how  can  I  pay  my  debt  V  To  which  my  reply  would  be : 
Keep  school  till  you  can  pay,  and  then  go  to  preaching. 

THE  SECRET  OF  SUCCESS. 

I  think  that  the  question  of  the  first  field  for  his 
preaching  is  the  transcendent  question  of  a  young  min- 
ister's life.  And  why  ?  Because  I  believe  that  on  that, 
very  largely,  turns  his  disposition  ;  and  that  on  his 
moral  disposition  turns  his  success  as  a  preacher.  If 
you  go  into  the  field  with  self-seeking,  and  more  or  less 
under  the  influence  of  vanity  or  ambition,  you  vitiate 
the  power  of  your  preaching  in  its  very  source. 

It  is  not  by  wisdom  or  philosophy ,4t  is  not  by  rheto- 
ric, though  these  may  incidentally  contribute  to  a  man's 
success ;  it  is  by  that  secret,  subtle,  invisible,  and  al- 
most incredible  power  which  a  man  derives  from  the 
Holy  Ghost  that  he  succeeds.  And  that  power  works 
in  man  with  what  is  most  generous,  most  disinterested, 
most  sincere,  most  self-sacrificing,  in  him. 

Now,  in  the  determination  of  your  life,  you  turn  the 
rudder  when  you  select  your  field.  If  you  say  to  your- 
self, —  however  much  you  may  veil  it  or  c  ver  it,  —  ''I 
will  go  where  much  prosperity  shall  attend  my  life," 
you  make  one  of  those  great,  generic  choices  that  mark 
out  the  future,  and  insidiously,  but  all  your  life  through, 
it  will  be  a  hindrance  to  you  and  a  limitation  of  your 
power. 

If  you  go  into  your  work  with  heroism  ;  if  you  sacri- 
fice yourself  for  it,  without  knowing  that  it  is  a  sacri- 
fice, if  you  give  your  soul  and  body  to  the  work  of  God 
among  his  poorest  and  neediest,  so  that  you  are  thrown 
upon  the  necessity  of  living  by  faith, — you  will  find  in 


8 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


it  ample  reward,  you  will  thrive  by  it,  and  rejoice  in  it. 
Thus  you  will  start  your  ministerial  character  upon  a 
plane  out  of  which  will  come  all  the  influences  that  you 
need,  the  mightiest  influences  that  are  known  in  this 
world.  Not  by  might  will  you  become  a  mighty  laborer, 
not  by  power,  not  by  genius,  but  by  that  disposition  in 
you  and  in  your  sermons  that  likens  you  to  the  Lord 
Jesus  Christ,  —  that  royalty  of  self-sacrifice,  that  glory 
of  pitying  love,  that  intense  and  entire  sympathy  with 
other  men  rather  than  with  yourself,  that  spirit  of  per- 
sonal plasticity  by  which  you  may  wrap  yourself  around 
circumstances,  and  glorify  base  things,  and  seek  out  low 
and  little  things  to  give  them  all  your  power,  and  be  to 
men  what  Christ  is  to  you,  —  wisdom,  sanctification,  jus- 
tification, all ! 

This,  then,  I  say,  is  the  reason  why  the  determination 
which  a  man  makes  in  respect  to  his  sphere  is  likely  to 
have  a  life-long  influence  upon  his  disposition,  and  so 
upon  that  which  is  more  potent  in  the  matter  of  preach- 
ing than  any  other  thing.  For  I  still  insist  that,  how- 
ever needful  and  appropriate  are  intellectual  equipment 
and  all  the  accessories  of  personal  bearing,  culture,  and 
refinement,  the  prime  condition  of  right  preaching  is 
heart  and  soul ;  and  that  to  make  these  right  is  to  keep 
them  in  accord  always  with  the  bounteous,  loving,  all- 
sacrificing,  self-denying  spirit  that  was  manifested  in 
the  Lord  Jesus  Christ. 

BUILDING  IN  A  NEW  FIELD. 

What,  then,  if  a  man  acts  under  these  influences  and 
goes  out  into  the  poor  fields ;  into  fields  where,  for  in- 
stance, there  are  no  churches ;  or  where,  if  there  are, 


CHOOSING  THE  FIELD. 


9 


there  had  better  be  none,  —  that  is,  where  it  would  be 
better  to  dissolve  them  and  crystallize  again.  Let  us 
see  some  of  the  methods  by  which  a  man  should  build 
up  under  such  circumstances,  and  what  would  be  the 
relation  of  this  kind  of  work  to  the  office  of  preaching. 

In  the  first  place,  no  man  can  go  into  a  new  field  and 
not  learn  very  speedily  —  I  know  it  to  be  so  —  how 
helpless  one  is  that  has  been  brought  up  in  the  midst 
of  a  highly  organized  society  and  is  suddenly  drawn 
out  of  it  where  society  is  inchoate;  where  it  is  in  a 
forming  process ;  where  nobody  loves  anybody ;  where 
a  man  has  to  be  pope,  cardinal,  bishop,  parish, —  every- 
thing in  himself. 

When  a  man  goes  into  a  new  neighborhood,  —  and 
consider,  gentlemen,  consider ;  don't  think  of  Connecti- 
cut while  I  am  talking  to  you,  for,  important  as  the 
State  is,  it  is  not  the  continent !  —  consider  not  even 
the  States  upon  the  Atlantic  slope ;  once  they  were 
something,  but  they  have  ceased  to  be,  comparatively 
speaking.  Consider  that  great  three-thousand-miles 
stretch  from  ocean  to  ocean.  Consider  the  great  waves 
of  population  that  are  rolling  in.  Consider  how,  from 
North  to  South,  from  East  to  West,  the  whole  land 
is  now  one  vast  missionary  ground.  Consider  what  a 
host  of  African  people  there  is  to  be  educated,  to  be 
built  up  into  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ ;  the  vast  masses 
of  foreigners  that  are  mingling  with  our  people.  Con- 
sider what  a  work  there  is  for  the  Christian  heart  to  do 
in  all  the  length  and  breadth  of  the  land ;  in  the  North, 
in  the  South,  in  the  East,  in  the  West,  in  every  State, 
in  every  section,  but  particularly  in  the  great,  new  em- 
pires that  are  growing  up  in  our  midst !  The  question 
1  ^ 


10 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


that  is  seriously  asked  by  every  thoughtful  Christian 
mind  is  :  How  shall  we  supply  the  gospel  to  these  vast, 
needy  masses  ? 

WHAT  IS  A  CHURCH  ? 

Now,  in  going  out  among  such  populations  you  will 
find,  drifting  in  the  mass,  here  and  there,  single  families, 
single  individuals,  of  trained  intelligence  and  moral 
worth;  but  society  itself,  at  large,  is  not  yet  formed, 
and  certainly  its  institutions  are  not  formed.  One  of 
the  first  experiences  that  a  young  preacher  has,  in  going 
into  new  fields,  is  the  necessity  of  gathering  and  form- 
ing a  church.  The  first  question  that  comes  up,  then, 
is  this :  Have  you  learned  anything  in  the  seminary 
which  will  enable  you  to  gather  and  form  a  church  ? 

What  is  your  idea  of  a  church  ?  Suppose  you  were 
thrown  down  to-day  in  the  midst  of  three  thousand  or 
five  thousand  people,  along  some  of  the  new  railroads, 
that  have  been  gathered  there  in  one  or  two  months, — 
have  you  any  aptitudes  ?  Have  you  any  thoughts  or 
plans  ?  Do  you  know  what  you  would  do  ?  You  have 
heard  the  churches  discussed  as  Protestant  and  Catho- 
lic ;  that  is  all  very  well.  The  notes  of  the  church  have 
probably  been  sounded  in  your  ears  through  all  your 
studies.  All  very  fine  are  these  theories  of  the  churches 
and  their  claims,  but  they  are  very  different  things  from 
the  practical  church  which  you  have  got  to  use  when 
you  get  among  poor,  common  people. 

Here,  then,  is  the  root  of  the  church  :  I  hold  it  to  be 
simply  the  development  of  social  infiitences  around  a 
central  spiritual  element^  to  keep  it  warm,  to  keep  it 
alive.    I  hold  that  it  is  impossible,  in  respect  to  the 


CHOOSING  THE  FIELD. 


11 


mass  of  men,  to  develop  the  spiritual  element  except 
by  the  active  and  the  reactive  influence  of  the  domes- 
tic and  social  feelings.  Indeed,  the  church  itself  is 
founded  upon  this  philosophical  principle,  namely,  that 
the  higher  spiritual  elements  in  men  are  so  weak  as  to 
need  the  auxiliary  influence  of  the  more  common  social 
feelings.  Thus  the  very  root  idea  of  a  church  is  to 
get  men  together  in  their  religious  life,  that  they  may 
help  themselves  and  each  other  by  their  social  rela- 
tions. 

THE  FIRST  STEP. 

Therefore,  in  going  into  any  field,  your  first  work  will 
be  to  find  out,  Is  there  one  man  ?  If  there  is,  are  there 
two,  three  ?  Can  I  find  six  persons  in  this  community, 
whom  I  can  get  together  to  meet  me,  and  who  will  talk 
on  the  subject  of  religion  together,  and  let  one  another 
know  their  wants,  their  hopes,  their  feelings  ?  Take 
a  stick  of  pine  and  put  it  down  here,  another  there, 
and  another  yonder,  and  set  them  on  fire ;  they  will 
all  go  out.  If  you  take  those  different  sticks  and  put 
them  together,  they  will  all  burn  throughout  to  ashes. 
You  can  keep  up  an  inflammation  when  you  put  them 
together,  but  you  cannot  if  you  separate  them  and  let 
each  one  burn  by  itself.  Now,  churches  are  made  like 
fires,  and  not  as  the  light  of  single  candles ;  therefore, 
when  a  person  goes  into  a  new  community,  the  first 
problem  is  how  to  draw  together  those  that  are  begin- 
ning to  feel  the  dawning  of  the  Divine  life. 

THE  preacher's  PERSONALITY. 

You  will  probably  find,  in  nine  cases  out  of  ten,  that 
there  is  no  strength,  or  available  material,  in  the 


12 


LECTUKES  ON  PREACHING. 


church  that  is  any  great  help  to  you.  Have  you  in 
yourself  the  power  to  be  the  fountain  ?  Have  you  the 
passion  by  which  you  can  take  those  five,  six,  ten,  fif- 
teen or  twenty  persons,  and,  grouping  them  together, 
breathe  into  them  a  common  life,  a  sympathy,  a  love  of 
friendship  and  sociality  ?  Though  that  is  to  be  inspired 
and  carried  up  as  far  as  possible,  yet  that  is  only  the 
beginning;  for  through  that  and  by  that  you  must 
breathe  into  them  a  church  life  and  reli^^ious  feelinc:. 
That  is  the  first  work.  ,  I  have  seen  a  great  many  men 
in  my  forjner  life  in  the  West,  who  came  out  from  New 
England  well  equipped  and  well  intentioned.  Usually 
they  spent  the  first  year  of  their  life  in  bemoaning  a 
want  of  Eastern  institutions.  The  second  year  was 
better,  but  their  action  was  awkward  and  ineffectual. 
It  was  about  the  third  year  before  they  fell  into  the 
spirit  of  their  mission,  so  that  they  could  improve  all 
their  time,  and  begin  the  work  that  is  to  be  done  in 
new  fields  by  gathering  people  together. 

But  w^hen  you  go  into  such  a  field  to  preach,  you  may 
lay  up  all  your  wTitten  sermons  on  the  shelf  People 
won't  come  to  hear  them.  In  the  first  instance,  you 
w^ill  have  to  take  your  Bible  in  your  hand  and  go  to 
them,  go  to  them  in  their  fields,  their  cabins,  or  their 
houses.  Preaching  does  not  mean  pulpit,  thank  God  ! 
Preaching  means  making  known  the  unsearchable  riches 
of  Christ,  to  one,  to  forty,  or  to  a  hundred,  as  the  case  may 
be.  He  who  is  a  teacher,  and  who  pours  the  inspired, 
Divine  truth  into  the  hearts  and  consciences  of  men, 
is  preaching.  That  is  preaching;  not  yet  in  the  largest 
development  of  it,  but  in  its  elements,  in  its  seed-forms. 
A  man,  therefore,  who  goes,  I  w^on't  say  to  ring  the  bell. 


CHOOSING  THE  FIELD. 


13 


because  there  will  be  none ;  I  won't  say  to  call  the 
people  to  church,  because  there  will  be  no  church  build- 
ing ;  but  who  goes  as  a  minister  into  a  county  where 
are  scattered,  we  will  say,  five  thousand  people,  goes  to 
hunt  up  the  lost  sheep,  to  talk  with  them,  man  by 
man,  household  by  household,  to  pray  in  their  families, 
to  make  himself  literally  a  shepherd,  seeking  a  scat- 
tered flock,  —  that  man  is  a  true  preacher  of  the  Word, 
in  the  highest  and  best  sense  of  the  term. 

KEFLEX  INFLUENCE  AND  EDUCATION. 

And  what  will  be  the  reflex  influence  upon  you,  — 
you  that  have  to  go  out  after  men  ?  If  your  heart  is  in 
it,  if  you  love  the  work  because  you  love  God,  and 
because  you  really  yearn  for  men,  it  will  become  so 
delightful  to  you  that  you  could  scarcely  be  induced 
to  leave  it.  There  is  a  pleasure  in  the  sense  of  having 
given  up  everything  for  Christ.  There  is  a  deep  en- 
joyment in  having  devoted  yourself,  soul  and  body,  to 
the  welfare  of  your  fellow-men,  so  that  you  have  no 
thought  and  no  care  but  for  them.  There  is  a  pleasure 
in  that,  which  is  never  touched  by  any  ordinary  expe- 
riences in  human  life.  It  is  the  highest.  If  it  be 
sohtary,  so  much  the  worse.  If  it  be  occasional,  so 
much  the  worse.  But  there  is  in  it  a  pleasure,  I  think, 
next  allied  to  the  raptures  of  heaven.  And  a  man  who 
has  but  his  Bible  and  knows  that;  who  goes  searching 
out  in  these  new  places  those  that  need  the  truth,  and 
proclaims  it  to  them,  and  then,  as  one  and  another  heart 
is  opened  to  him,  gathers  them  together,  organizes  them 
into  a  society ;  calls  it  a  church,  or  an  assembly  of  God's 
people ;  begins  then  to  fan  the  social  feeling,  bringing 


14 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


them  more  and  more  into  friendly  relations  with  one 
another,  teaching  them,  administering  the  ordinances, 
being  himself  minister  (that  is,  servant,  slave  of  all, 
doing  all  work)  —  that  man,  I  think,  will  have  more 
joy  in  the  ministry  than  any  other. 

At  any  rate,  I  look  back  to  my  own  missionary  days 
as  being  transcendently  the  happiest  period  of  my  life. 
I  look  back  to  the  childhood  of  my  ministry  as  most  of 
you  look  back  to  the  childhood  of  your  life.  The  sweet- 
est pleasures  I  have  ever  known  are  not  those  that  1 
have  now,  but  those  that  I  remember,  when  I  was  un- 
known, in  an  unknown  land,  among  a  scattered  people, 
mostly  poor,  and  to  whom  I  had  to  go  and  preach  the 
gospel,  man  by  man,  house  by  house,  gathering  them  on 
Sundays,  a  few,  —  twenty,  fifty,  or  a  hundred,  as  the  case 
might  be,  —  an'3  preaching  the  gospel  more  formally  to 
them,  as  they  were  able  to  bear  it. 

ELEMENTS  OF  POWER  GAINED — CREATIVENESS — REALITY. 

Creativeness,  then,  is  one  of  the  elements  that  will  be 
developed  in  you  by  this  earnest  striving  of  all  your 
powers  to  inspire  men,  to  draw  them  together,  to  organ- 
ize them  into  a  living,  growing  church.  There  will  also 
be  developed  the  element  of  reality  in  preaching.  A 
large  amount  of  preaching  has  come  to  be  upon  ques- 
tions that  have  been  spun  and  run  out  by  philosophical 
consideration  into  nice  but  not  very  useful  discrimi- 
nations —  questions  of  theology,  questions  of  evidence, 
—a  thousand  intellectual  and  moral  distinctions,  which 
are  not  unadapted  to  the  higher  forms  of  civilization, 
but  which  have  no  relation  to  the  great  mass  of  the 
people. 


CHOOSING  THE  FIELD. 


15 


But  he  who  goes  into  a  new  field  to  work,  goes  where 
everything  is  to  be  done  for  a  purpose,  and  with  men 
as  they  are.  There  is  a  reality  about  everything  he 
does,  which  does  not  belong  to  older  parishes  ;  and 
this  will  make  him  intensely  practical,  intensely  real. 
Going  into  a  new  field  in  this  way,  one  has,  if  I  may 
say  so,  an  emancipation,  a  liberty,  which  the  conven- 
tions of  older  society  would  scarcely  allow  him. 

INDIVIDUALITY. 

The  exercise  of  his  own  primary  personal  humanity  is 
invaluable  to  him  in  the  whole  course  and  career  of  his 
life.  It  gives  him  a  certain  strong  individuality.  Men 
in  new  countries  walk  singly,  men  in  old  countries  walk 
in  platoons,  in  companies,  and  in  regiments.  We  do 
what  others  do.  We  want  to  know  what  is  the  custom ; 
and  that  has  the  force  of  law.  And  so  men  are  gradu- 
ally conformed.  They  smooth  off  all  individual  ex- 
crescences, and  adapt  themselves  to  the  notions  and 
manners  of  others.  Nothing  of  this  kind  can  exist  in 
new  States  and  settlements.  The  consequence  is,  that 
men  who  are  there  formed  have  intense  individuality, 
which  gives  a  great  deal  of  force. 

I  have  seen  many  men  in  older  communities,  who,  I 
think,  have  wasted  their  lives  by  repressing  the  things 
which  are  peculiar  to  them,  and  in  which  there  would 
have  been  a  signal  power.  They  have  repressed  them 
in  deference  to  the  customs  of  the  community  ;  and 
those  things  in  them  which  w^ould  otherwise  have  been 
salient  and  powerful  die  within  them  unknown  and 
unused. 


16 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


WORK  FROM  THE  BOTTOM  UPWARD. 

In  making  your  selection  of  a  field,  then,  when  you 
are  about  to  go  out  from  study  to  practical  work,  the 
principle,  it  seems  to  me,  on  which  you  should  choose, 
should  be,  not  "  What  is  best  for  me  ? "  but  "  What  is 
best  for  the  cause  of  God  among  men  ? "  Not  "  Where 
can  I  be  settled  among  refined  and  affectionate  people  ? " 

—  though  I  do  not  consider  that  an  offence,  or  a  crime  ; 

—  not  "Where  can  I  have  a  stipend  that  shall  amply 
support  all  reasonable  wants  ?  "  —  though  I  do  not  con- 
sider that  a  vicious  desire ;  —  not  "  Where  shall  I  have 
an  appreciative  audience  in  which  my  peculiar  kind  of 
talent,  my  refinement,  my  poetical  tendencies,  or  my 
subtle  philosophical  nature,  would  have  a  fair,  agreeable 
opportunity  ? "  Although  there  may  be  cases  (God 
knows ;  we  don't,  always)  where  a  man  would  better 
settle  in  an  old  community  on  these  very  accounts,  —  I 
do  not  debar  men  from  regular  churches,  —  yet,  unless  a 
case  can  be  made  out  specially,  it  seems  to  me  the  pre- 
sumption is  that  every  young  man  should  go  into  work 
at  the  bottom.  And  this  may  be  either  in  the  open 
field,  as  it  were,  or  in  the  cities.  If  you  go  into  the 
open-field  work,  as  I  have  already  said  to  you,  you  will 
have  your  special  difficulties,  such  as  belong  to  a  sparse 
population ;  but,  generally  speaking,  you  will  be  com- 
paratively free  from  dealing  with  men  of  vicious  habits. 
Not  that  there  are  not  rougher  neighborhoods  among 
the  new  lands,  where  men  are  coarse  and  animal,  but 
that  the  special  "criminal  classes"  hardly  exist  there. 
In  cities,  on  the  other  hand,  men  undertaking  untilled 
fields  of  labor  usually  find  themselves  in  sinks  of  bad- 


CHOOSING  THE  FIELD. 


17 


ness,  more  or  less ;  and,  under  such  circumstances,  this 
choice  implies'  even  more  self-denial  than  comes  with 
the  attempt  to  create  churches  in  the  newer  settle- 
ments of  the  West  and  the  South,  because  it  necessitates 
dealing  with  natures  far  more  perverted  than  the  aver- 
age of  men  who  have  the  hardy  vigor  and  independence 
to  settle  a  new  country.  Therefore,  in  the  formation  of 
schools,  mission-schools,  or  little  praying  circles,  which 
are  nascent  churches,  in  the  cities,  you  have  still  more 
to  deal  with  the  personal  principle.  You  have  to  bring 
to  bear  on  men  still  more  directly  the  power  of  your 
own  direct,  personal  influence.  You  are  to  be  yourself 
the  channel  through  which  the  Spirit  of  God  works 
upon  the  hearts  of  these  men  ;  and  you  must  do  for  them, 
in  your  measure,  what  the  Spirit  of  God  and  of  the 
Lord  Jesus  Christ  has  done  for  you.  You  must  carry 
their  sorrows.  You  must  take,  in  one  sense,  the  pun- 
ishment of  their  sins.  You  must  suffer  with  them. 
You  must  abase  yourself,  and  go  down  to  their  condition. 

AN  APOSTOLIC  EXEMPLAR. 

We  hear  a  great  deal  about  the  cogency  of  argu- 
mentative preaching,  about  the  eloquence  of  preaching. 
When  shall  we  hear  about  the  power  that  comes  from 
self-abnegation  in  preachers,  —  the  losing  of  self  ?  Do 
you  know  how  many  hundred,  how  many  thousand, 
ministers  there  are  in  the  United  States  to-day  who 
have  no  charges,  nothing  to  do  ?  Do  you  know  how 
many  thousand  churches  there  are  that  are  vacant  to- 
day in  the  United  States;  churches  already  formed, 
but  without  anybody  to  minister  to  them  ?  Here  are  a 
thousand  ministers ;  nobody  wants  them.    Here  are  a 

B 


18 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


thousand  churches  ;  nobody  wants  them,  —  empty,  hol- 
low. Never  such  a  time,  never  such  an  opening,  never 
such  a  need  in  the  world  as  to-day ;  and  yet  thousands 
of  men  there  are  —  not  drafted  into  other  departments, 
not  carrying  on  a  part  of  the  great  collateral  work  — 
who  are  destitute  of  that  peculiar  spirit  which  should 
lead  them  to  "  spend  and  be  spent,"  as  the  Apostle  was 
willing  to  do  and  to  be. 

Let  me  read  you  a  paragraph :  "  Behold,  the  third 
time  I  am  ready  to  come  to  you,  and  I  will  not  be  bur- 
densome to  you ;  for  I  seek  not  yours,  but  you.  For  the 
children  ought  not  to  lay  up  for  the  parents,  but  the 
parents  for  the  children.  And  I  will  very  gladly  spend 
and  be  spent  for  you ;  though  the  more  abundantly  I 
love  you,  the  less  I  be  loved." 

Now,  there  are  a  great  many  splendid  things  that 
Paul  has  said ;  but,  judging  them  in  the  moral  sphere,  I 
do  not  think  he  ever  said  another  thing  that  so  drank 
up  into  itself  the  very  quintessential  spirit  of  the  gos- 
pel as  that  last,  —  that  he  was  willing  to  spend  and  be 
spent  for  them,  even  though  the  more  intensely  he 
loved  them  and  sacrificed  himself  for  them,  the  less 
he  should  be  loved  of  them. 

We  love  loveliness.  We  love  them  that  love  us. 
But  Paul  knew  he  was  a  strong  man,  and  has  told  us 
so  on  divers  occasions ;  he  knew  he  had  power  second 
to  none ;  but  he  gave  it  to  these  people  who  were  very 
dear  to  him,  saying,  "  I  am  willing  to  give  more  ;  I  am 
willing  to  be  utterly  ransacked  and  used  up  for  you ; 
I  am  willing  to  do  it,  though  I  were  to  find  a  decrease 
in  your  affection  and  esteem  for  me  in  the  proportion 
in  which  I  love  you  more  and  more."    This  loving 


CHOOSING  THE  FIELD. 


19 


against  all  obstacles,  this  all-surrendering  power  of 
love,  —  this  is  what  is  wanted  in  Christian  ministers. 

THE  POWER  OF  CHRISTIAN  HEROISM. 

There  are  no  difficulties  to-day  that  are  not  surmount- 
able. The  gospel  has  not  lost  a  particle  of  its  power.  I 
hear  a  great  deal  said  about  Christianity  passing  away. 
When  Christianity  has  passed  away  out  of  this  globe, 
my  friends,  there  will  be  nothing  of  the  earth  left. 
Christianity  is  not  the  technic  of  theology ;  it  is  not 
the  organ  or  the  ordinances  of  the  church  ;  it  is  the 
development  of  Divine  power,  truth,  equity,  and  love 
in  the  most  noble  of  all  conceivable  forms.  And  the 
intrinsic  power  of  such  developments  will  never  weaken 
or  fail.  It  is  the  type  of  the  Divine  nature  made 
manifest  by  Christ,  and,  by  the  Apostles,  afterwards, 
brought  as  an  active  force  into  life  and  applied  to  men. 
Do  you  believe  that  the  heroism  of  love,  that  the  am- 
plitude of  a  cheerful  and  a  heroic  self-denial,  that  tears 
for  others  and  joy  in  others,  have  lost  their  power  in 
this  world  ?  A  man  in  Christ  Jesus  to-day  is  just  as 
noble  and  as  powerful  as  he  ever  was,  and  becomes 
more  and  more  so,  with  the  refinements  and  exalta- 
tions of  life.  The  trouble  is  that  ministers  have  be- 
come professional,  have  become  class-men.  They  work 
for  single  strata  in  society ;  they  work  for  the  higher 
ranges  of  life.  They  are  lifted  above  the  necessity  of 
emptying  themselves.  They  can  hardly  be  said  to  fol- 
low Him,  the  delineation  of  whose  life  is  a  perpetual 
lesson  to  us. 

"  Let  this  mind  be  in  you  which  was  also  in  Christ 
Jesus.    He,  being  in  the  form  of  God,  thought  it  not 


20 


LECTLTRES  ON  PREACHING. 


robbery  to  be  equal  with  God,  but  made  himself  of  no 
reputation,  and  took  upon  him  the  form  of  a  servant,  and 
was  made  in  the  likeness  of  men ;  and,  being  found  in 
fashion  as  a  man,  he  humbled  himself  and  became  obe- 
dient unto  death,  even  the  death  of  the  cross."  There 
was  no  obstacle  to  stop  him.  It  was  the  holy,  impetu- 
ous downward  plunging  of  love  till  it  should  reach  the 
very  bottom  below,  where  there  was  no  sentient  life. 
That  is  the  example  of  Christ ;  there  is  the  divinity  of 
Christ ;  there  is  the  example  and  the  type  which  the 
Christian  minister  is  to  follow. 

THE  NEED  OF  TO-DAY. 

So,  if  he  go  into  his  place  of  labor  and  preach  without 
fruits,  it  is  not  that  the  gospel  has  lost  its  power  ;  it  is 
that  he  has  lost  his  power.  If  men  seek  to  do  good,  and 
find  that  they  are  so  restricted  and  limited  in  our  day, 
it  is  simply  because  they  are  not  clothed  with  those 
moral  impulses  and  that  moral  power  from  which  origi- 
nally the  gospel  took  its  impetus,  and  which  are  still 
just  as  competent  to  the  production  of  like  effects  as 
they  ever  were.  When  we  have  a  generation  of  men 
that  are  otherwise  as  amply  equipped  as  they  are  in 
knowledge  and  in  aptitude  for  using  knowledge ;  who 
are  willing  to  make  themselves  a  little  lower  than  the 
least,  willing  to  take  the  humblest  places,  willing  to 
abide  there  so  long  as  they  are  needed  and  till  they  are 
called  by  the  unequivocal  voice  of  God's  providence 
away  from  those  spheres, —  as  soon  as  we  see  such  a 
generation  of  ministers,  just  so  soon  shall  we  see  more 
than  the  old  Pentecostal  glories  upon  the  earth  !  We 
have  need  of  such  ministers. 


CHOOSIMG  THE  FIELD. 


21 


You  cannot  lift  up  the  ignorance  in  our  land,  you 
cannot  go  into  the  squalor  and  poverty  that  begrime 
our  cities,  you  cannot  preach  the  gospel  to  every  crea- 
ture, unless  you  are  baptized  into  this  higher  Christian 
spirit,  and  are  willing  to  spend  and  be  spent,  —  loved 
or  unloved,  as  the  case  may  be,  —  and  to  continue  the 
work  of  God  in  the  salvation  of  souls. 

MISSION-WORK  THE  BEST  TRAINING. 

And  when  one  has  wrought  patiently  and  with  the 
expectation,  perhaps,  of  spending  his  life  in  such  a 
sphere  as  this  (and, if  God  so  wills,  he  will  gladly  continue 
to  serve  Christ  there),  if  afterwards  he  should  be  brouglit 
by  God's  providence  into  a  higher  sphere,  he  will  be  as 
much  better  qualified  for  that  higher  sphere  as  the  work 
which  he  has  gone  through  is  a  higher  education  than  any 
mere  intellectual  training.  He  never  will  lose  that  love 
for  men,  he  never  will  lose  tliat  close  sympathy  with 
them,  he  never  will  lose  that  earnestness,  he  never  will 
lose  that  practicalness,  which  this  early  training  gives. 
His  sermons  will  glow,  they  will  be  full  of  power,  and 
he  will  have  and  will  exercise  among  men  that  subtle 
influence  which  comes  from  this  development  of  a  great 
Christian  humanity  by  work  under  circumstances  of 
self-denial  and  toil  among  his  fellow- men. 

QUESTIONS  AND  ANSWERS. 

Q.  Is  not  the  young  minister  choosing  his  place  a  little  like  a 
young  lady  choosing  her  husband  ? 

Mr.  Beecher.  —  Yes,  sir ;  T  think  it  is  a  thing  that 
is  done  on  both  sides.  I  think  as  many  young  ladies 
choose  as  gentlemen,  only  it  is  done  in  a  little  more 
delicate  manner,  and.  indirectly. 


22 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


Q.  How  often,  should  you  judge,  has  a  young  minister  occasion 
to  choose  any  more  than,  as  you  stated  at  the  start,  between  a 
foreign  or  home  mission  on  the  one  hand,  and  leaving  himself  at 
the  disposal  of  the  providence  of  God  and  the  church  on  the 
other  1  Can  he  pick  out  a  parish  for  himself  honestly  or  hon- 
orably ? 

Mr.  Beecher.  —  I  think  there  may  be  circumstances 
in  which  a  young  man  will  say,  "  I  am  shut  up,  in  my 
own  judgment  and  in  the  judgment  of  wise  friends, 
to  just  so  much  of  a  career.  I  am  at  liberty  to  do 
only  just  such  things "  ;  and  where  that  is  honestly 
the  case,  I  think  he  is  to  act  as  fearlessly  and  with  as 
little  self-condemnation  as  in  any  other  circumstances. 
What  I  wanted  to  impress  upon  you  was,  that  with  a 
class  of  students  brought  up  in  an  old  community,  and 
surrounded  by  worthy  and  excellent  churches,  the  gen- 
eral tendency  will  be  to  make  themselves  the  carriers- 
on  of  other  men's  work ;  and  that,  for  the  purpose  of 
gaining  a  higher  discipline  and  education,  it  is  worth 
every  man's  while  to  go  into  new  fields,  where  he  has 
to  begin  the  work,  a  creator  himself,  and  become  the 
minister  of  an  older  church  at  a  later  period,  with  an 
ampler  education  and  experience. 

The  gentleman  who  asked  the  preceding  questions  [the  Rev. 
Dr.  Bacon]  then  said  :  "  I  asked  that  question,  not  as  imply- 
ing any  mistake  on  the  part  of  the  lecturer,  for  I  feel  most 
heartily  thankful  for  the  whole  current  of  thought  in  this  lecture, 
and  for  the  very  vivid  and  desirable  impression  which  I  believe 
it  has  produced  upon  all  our  minds,  but  for  the  sake  of  inten- 
sifying this  idea :  that  it  does  not  become  a  young  minister  or  a 
candidate  for  the  ministry  to  be  on  the  lookout  for  a  place  where 
he  can  get  introduced  ;  and  that  he  should  leave  himself  in  the 
hands  of  God's  providence  and  of  the  church.    And,  if  he  is  not 


CHOOSING  THE  FIELD. 


23 


satisfied  with  that,  let  him  put  himself  under  the  care  of  the 
Methodist  Conference,  —  there  are  those  here  who  are  able  to  give 
him  advice  in  that  respect,  —  and  let  them  dispose  of  him." 

Mr.  Beecher.  —  Well,  gentlemen,  you  may  laugli  at 
that  matter,  but  in  the  West  I  lived  right  alongside  of 
Methodists,  where  I  was  in  the  minority  and  they  were 
in  the  majority,  as  is  overwhelmingly  the  case  in  In- 
diana ;  and  T  saw  a  great  deal  of  the  working  of  that 
system.  Of  course  it  is  not  perfect,  nor  is  any  other 
system  perfect ;  but  I  do  not  believe  there  is  any 
other  system  on  earth  in  which  you  can  take  men  at 
the  state  in  which  they  take  them  there,  with  as  few 
aptitudes,  and  then  work  up  as  good  ministers  out  of 
them  by  training,  as  they  do.  And  I  attribute  their 
success  to  this  simple  fact,  that  they  put  the  Bible  into 
a  man's  hand  and  send  him  out  among  the  people.  It 
is  the  grinding  of  a  man  upon  other  men  that  makes 
him  sharp.  Of  course,  if  you  have  men  that  are  educated 
to  begin  with,  it  will  be  still  better.  But  the  Methodist 
brethren  take  men,  literally,  right  from  the  plow, 
from  the  flail,  who  cannot  even  speak  good  English. 
I  knew  good  "  Old  Sorrel,"  as  we  used  to  call  him,  of 
Indiana;  now  a  sound,  well-educated,  cultivated  man, 
a  man  of  great  influence  and  power.  But  when  he 
first  went  on  the  circuit  in  the  Whitewater  valley,  he 
did  n't  know  enough  to  tell  the  number  of  the  verse  of 
the  text.  He  had  to  count  off  from  the  beginning, 
"  one,  two,  three,  four,"  in  order  to  announce  "  the  fourth 
chapter  and  the  sixteenth  verse."  They  take  just  such 
men,  in  the  West,  and  put  them  into  a  field  and  set 
them  at  work ;  and  they  grow  all  the  time.  They  are 
reading  as  they  ride ;  their  library  is  in  their  saddle- 


24 


LECTURES  ON  rilEACllING. 


bags ;  they  are  reading  in  their  cabins.  They  unfold 
slowly,  but  the  beauty  of  it  is,  that  they  are  all  the 
time  bringing  what  knowledge  they  have,  to  bear  upon 
other  men.  This  working  of  men  on  men  is  the  way 
to  make  men,  and  workers. 


II. 


PEAYER 

ANY  an  enthusiast,  when  he  begins  his  ca- 
reer as  preacher,  is  subject  to  a  disenchant- 
ment of  the  rudest  kind.  He  has  been 
brought  up  to  think  of  the  Christian  minis- 
try as  the  noblest  profession  which  can  occupy  and  task 
the  human  mind.  He  has  looked  at  it  in  its  ideal  per- 
fection, he  has  thought  of  it  as  springing  from  the  will 
of  God  through  Jesus  Christ,  and  as  standing,  therefore, 
upon  the  highest  place  of  sanctity.  And  he  loves  — 
perhaps  not  altogether  from  selfish  reasons  —  to  surround 
it  in  his  thought  with  Divine  authority,  with  pre-emi- 
nence, with  all  that  shall  give  him  the  right  to  stand, 
as  the  representative  of  the  Lord  in  the  community,  to 
make  known  the  law  of  God,  and  to  enforce  that  law. 

But  no  man  will  go  into  the  field  to-day  and  not  find 
himself  in  practical  experience  stripped  of  much  of 
this  expected  power.  He  will  find  the  pulpit  sub- 
ject to  the  same  law  which  acts  in  other  institutions. 
The  strong  will  be  strong,  the  weak  will  be  weak,  the 
poor  will  be  poor,  the  spiritually  rich  will  be  rich  ;  and 
there  is  many  a  man  who  expected  to  walk  in  the  high 

VOL.  II,  2 


26 


LECTUKES  ON  PREACHING. 


places  of  the  earth  that  goes  pitapat,  pitapat,  down 
behind  the  hill,  and  hides  himself  in  great  disappoint- 
ment. And  it  is  worth  our  while  to  take  into  considera- 
tion, not  how  Christianity  stands,  but  how  the  Chris- 
tian ministry  and  the  Christian  church  stand  to-day,  and 
what  is  their  relation  to  the  community. 

CHANGED  POSITION  OF  THE  CHURCH. 

Certainly  the  position  of  God's  kingdom  in  the  world 
is  not  such  as  it  was  in  the  beginning,  before  the 
Christian  church  was  born,  while  it  was  carried  in  the 
loins  of  the  Jewish  church.  Still  less  is  it  as  it  was  in 
those  ages  in  which  the  Christian  church  was  the  rival 
of  the  State  itself,  and  dominated  nations  and  held  the 
universal  conscience  in  awe  and  fear.  That  is  past.  It 
will  never  probably  come  again  on  earth.  Few  places 
yet  remain  with  such  ancient  notions  that  children, 
looking  out  of  the  door  and  seeing  the  minister  walking 
with  all  the  dignity  of  the  institution  upon  him,  run 
back,  afraid  of  him.  With  the  old  staff,  and  with  the 
old  buckles,  and  with  the  old  three-cornered  hat,  has 
gone  a  great  deal  besides  the  habiliments. 

GROWTH  OF  OTHER  PROFESSIONS  IN  LEARNING. 

There  are  other  people  in  the  community  that  have 
ranged  up  beside,  in  many  respects  overtopped,  the 
Christian  ministry.  For,  once  the  church  was  the  main 
repository  of  learning,  and  the  ministry  were  on  the 
whole  in  advance  of  the  community  in  solid  learn- 
ing. The  Christian  ministry  still,  in,  I  think,  almost 
every  land,  may  be  said  to  be  soundly  educated,  and 
to  compare  favorably  with  any  of  the  learned  profes- 


PRAYER. 


27 


sions ;  but  it  has  lost  the  distinction  of  pre-eminence 
in  this  regard.  It  is  no  more  looked  up  to  as  the  cus- 
todian of  knowledge.  Not  that  it  has  lost  any ;  not 
that  it  has  not  gained ;  but  that  other  professions, 
through  a  larger  and  more  liberal  method  of  education, 
have  also  gained  in  knowledge,  and  the  whole  commu- 
nity has  grown,  both  in  intelligence  and  knowledge. 
The  distance  between  the  top  and  the  bottom  of  society 
is  growing  less  and  less.  Not  so  much  because  the  top 
does  not  grow,  but  because  the  bottom  is  growing  up 
all  the  time.  The  relative  distance,  therefore,  between 
the  preacher  and  the  hearer  is  lessened  continually,  and 
will  doubtless  go  on  to  be  lessened. 

THE  SPREAD  OF  LETTERS. 

Nor  are  we  to  forget  that  the  pulpit,  to-day,  is  not 
what  it  was  a  hundred  years  ago,  certainly  not  what  it 
was  anterior  to  that  date,  as  a  vehicle  for  communica- 
ting knowledge.  It  was  not  only  the  encych^pedia,  but 
it  was  the  literature,  almost.  It  had  the  function  of 
making  known  to  the  great  body  of  peasants,  to  the 
yeomen,  to  the  great  middle  class,  to  the  ordinary 
households  of  the  community,  everything  they  learned 
above  the  usual  level  of  their  own  lives.  It  was 
from  the  pulpit,  either  on  the  Sabbath  or  by  the  pre- 
lections of  the  week,  that  the  most  knowledge  was 
gained.  The  schoolmaster  did  well,  but  the  minister 
was  the  teacher-in-chief. 

But,  to-day,  there  is  no  such  thing  possible.  We 
speak  once  in  seven  days ;  there  are  newspapers  with 
fifty  thousand  tongues,  that  speak  seven  times  in  seven 
days.    We  speak  what  little  we  can  weave  into  our 


28 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


periodical  sermonizings,  but  books  are  flying  every- 
where ;  magazines  of  every  dimension  and  every  de- 
scription are  penetrating  the  nooks  and  corners  of  so- 
ciety. Tlie  carman  that  sits  down  to  eat  his  nooning 
meal  reads  as  he  eats.  Men  that  travel  are  stuffed  with 
pamphlets,  with  books,  with  printed  matter  of  -  every 
sort.  Science  is  cheap,  literature  is  cheap,  all  fictions 
are  cheap,  and  are  serving  everything  from  the  highest 
to  the  lowest  interests  of  society,  from  the  most  sacred 
to  the  meanest  and  wickedest.  The  pulpit  cannot  in 
celerity,  certainly  not  in  versatility  and  abundance, 
come  into  comparison  with  them. 

In  the  work  of  the  dispersion  of  thought  and  knowl- 
edge over  the  world,  the  machinery  of  general  society 
has  been  augmented  almost  beyond  conception,  and  the 
pulpit  has  been  left  far  behind.  It  neither  stands 
ahead  of  the  other  professions  in  general  learning,  nor 
does  it  compare,  as  a  means  of  diffusing  knowledge, 
with  the  other  enginery  which  is  at  play  all  over  the 
globe. 

And  therefore  men  say,  "  The  pulpit  has  had  its  day." 
I  say  its  day  has  just  begun.  I  say  that  all  this  busi- 
ness of  taking  out  the  ore  of  knowdedge  and  smelting  it, 
and  manufacturing  it,  and  carrying  it  commercially  to 
the  nations  of  the  earth,  which  has  been  so  long  per- 
formed by  the  ministerial  profession,  has  been  in  some 
sense  an  encumbrance  to  them.  It  has  not  been  alto- 
gether a  power.  It  has  given  a  distinction  to  the  min- 
istry and  an  authority  to  the  church  ;  it  has  wrought  out 
pride  and  vanity  and  unwarrantable  claims^  which  the 
church  is  better  without  than  with. 


PRAYEK. 


29 


THE  CHURCH  ONE  FORCE  AMONG  MANY. 

It  seems  to  me,  however,  that  men  do  not  take  into 
consideration  the  fact,  that,  in  any  community,  the 
church  is  now  only  one  of  the  potentially  organized 
influences  or  forces  that  are  at  work.  The  numerous 
industrial  vocations  of  society,  and  the  commercial  vo- 
cations (for  they  may  still  be  classed  generically  with 
the  industrial),  so  widely  extended  and  calling  to  their 
service  such  able  men  and  so  many  of  them,  —  these 
forces  that  thunder  at  the  bottom  of  society  are  tremen- 
dous, and  are  not  to  be  despised  because  they  are  nor- 
mal. And  if  they  follow  the  line  of  the  Divine  intent, 
they  are  working  at  fundamental  morals,  working  in 
the  direction  of  a  true  manhood.  But  they  are  organ- 
ized, they  are  necessary,  they  are  going  forward  with 
vast  power.  If  one  abstracts  them,  and  in  his  imagina- 
tion considers  what  is  the  force  of  the  hammer  and  of 
the  saw  and  of  the  plane,  what  is  the  power  of  the  en- 
gine, and  of  the  very  many  men  that  manipulate  them 
in  society,  it  would  seem  as  if  the  globe  itself  had 
become  one  vast  smithy,  and  there  were  more  than 
human  forces  working  in  the  shop  and  upon  the  anvil. 
And  the  pulpit  has  got  to  operate  in  communities  that 
are  already  possessed  by  these  intense  industrial  forces. 
Nay,  tliere  are  also  all  the  trades  and  avocations  of  every 
kind,  the  liberal  professions,  as  they  are  called,  and,  be- 
sides these,  the  whole  swarm  of  special  organizations,  — 
what  may  be  called  the  skirmishers  of  civilization,  the 
lyceum,  the  masonic  lodge,  the  literary  association,  the 
benevolent  and  reformatory  and  temperance  societies, 
and  what  not,  —  hundreds,  multiplying  with  astonish- 


30 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


ing  fecundity  every  year ;  all  these  influences  are  at 
work,  together  with  the  organized  forces  of  government 
itself.  And  when  the  young  man  goes  into  what  is 
called  a  public-spirited  town,  he  goes  into  a  church  that 
stands  in  the  midst  of  what  may  be  called  a  dozen  other 
churches,  only  secular  instead  of  religious, —organized 
forces  in  society.  They  belong  to  the  Divine  Provi- 
dence, and  they  are  workers  together  with  the  church, 
if  a  man  is  wise  to  understand  and  use  them.  If  a 
man  thinks  they  are  antagonistic,  if  he  looks  upon  them 
with  jealousy  and  calls  them  a  part  of  the  world,  he 
separates  himself  by  just  so  much  from  the  Divine 
Providence  and  from  the  understanding  of  God's  will 
revealed  in  the  events  of  his  day.  For  all  these  great 
forces  have  in  them  a  certain  law,  that  of  custom  ;  a  cer- 
tain ethic,  an  ethic  that  relates  to  a  man's  transactions 
in  so  far  as  the  business  of  any  given  circle  or  profes- 
sion is  concerned.  They  are  all  operating  upon  the 
minds  of  men. 

So  when  the  Sabbath  day  comes,  and  I  get  into  my 
pulpit,  do  you  suppose  I  go  there  now  with  these  people 
fresh  before  me,  all  virgin  silver,  all  nn wrought  metal, 
thinking  that  I  am  the  first  man  that  has  had  hold  of 
them  and  the  last  that  will  liave  hold  of  them,  in  re- 
spect to  affairs  ?  I  tell  you  these  men  have  been  exer- 
cised in  intellect  more  than  I  can  exercise  them,  —  these 
men  that  have  driving  behind  them  forces  which  impel 
them  to  complex,  discriminating  thought,  to  all  manner 
of  critical  inspection  and  judgment,  to  a  thousand  men- 
tal processes  which  I  cannot  by  mere  speaking  equal, 
—  these  men  have  all  of  them  been  touched  in  their 
sympathies.     They  have  been  driven  by  a  certain 


PRAYER. 


31 


law-conscience  in  custom;  they  have  all  been  law- 
finders  or  law-breakers,  —  for  to  find  and  to  break  are 
almost  synonymous  in  human  life.  These  men  are 
operated  upon  by  a  hundred  living  forces  before  I  get  a 
chance  at  them.  These  forces  are  not  rhetorical,  they 
are  not  merely  enthusiastic  ;  they  are  influences  that  are 
a  part  of  life,  that  belong  to  the  cradle,  the  table,  the 
fireside,  and  the  shop.  They  belong  to  that  life  which 
is  like  a  stream  from  which,  when  a  man  is  once  cast 
into  it,  he  cannot  escape  ;  he  goes  with  it  easily,  or,  if 
he  resists  it,  it  rolls  him  on  in  spite  of  himself. 

THE  FUNCTION  OF  THE  PULPIT. 

The  pulpit,  then,  stands  up  in  the  midst  of  a  great 
organized  State,  with  industrial  forces  organized  and 
under  the  supervision  of  the  Divine  Providence  ;  and  it 
is  one  force  among  many.  Now,  the  question  is :  shall 
the  pulpit  attempt  to  appropriate  to  itself  the  business 
of  all  these  ?  Why,  it  were  worse  than  folly.  Shall  the 
pulpit  undertake  to  put  itself  into  antagonism  with 
these  ?  That  is,  as  I  have  already  said,  to  go  into  an- 
tagonism to  God  in  his  providence.  What  is  the  great 
duty  of  the  ministry,  in  reference  to  these  organized 
forces  of  society  ?  It  is  to  spiritualize  them,  to  inspire 
them,  to  give  a  soul  to  the  great  working,  thinking, 
throbbing  world.  It  is  to  open  to  it  and  let  down  upon 
it  the  inspiration  of  the  Holy  Ghost,  the  fire  of  the  in- 
visible world,  that  higher  and  nobler  consciousness  of 
humanity  which  is  struggling  blindly,  mutely,  down 
below,  but  which  gets  emancipation  on  the  Sabbath  day, 
when  men  come  to  know  what  are  the  meanings  of  all 
those  things,  dimly  seen  or  rudely  felt,  which  they  have 


32 


LECTURES  ON  fUEACHlNG. 


met  during  the  week.  And  the  minister  stands  there  to 
touch  actual  experiences,  manly  experiences,  noble  ex- 
periences ;  to  touch  them  as  the  sun  touches  the  cloud- 
storm  that  is  retiring  from  the  field,  when  all  colors 
spring  out  and  the  glory  of  God  rests  upon  it. 

In  this  light,  we  shall  go  to  our  pieaching  work  un- 
der very  different  auspices  from  those  which  we  should 
be  likely  to  have  if  we  took  a  dilettante  view  of  the 
sacredness  of  the  Christian  ministry,  and  of  the  great 
authority  of  the  men  on  whom  the  hands  have  been 
placed,  and  who  have  the  right  to  say,  "  Do  this  and  do 
that,"  and  Be  thou  here  and  be  thou  there."  All  that 
power  is  stripped  away  ;  that  is  all  gone.  You  cannot 
bring  it  back  by  tears,  nor  by  invocations,  —  thank  God  ! 
It  is  very  easy  for  you  to  stop  the  eagle  before  the  egg 
is  hatched,  but  no  art  was  ever  able  to  put  the  eagle 
back  into  his  e^sf  after  he  had  been  hatched. 

Society  is  a  part  of  God's  great  plan,  of  which  the 
church  is  the  servant  and  the  minister.  And  society, 
under  Divine  influence,  has  developed  these  very  things; 
and  we  ought  to  recognize  that  these  are  part  of  the 
fruits  of  Christianity  itself,  —  of  Christianity  which  is 
infinitely  flexible  and  susceptible  of  development,  so 
that  it  constantly  meets  the  new  phases  and  new  as- 
pects of  affairs. 

THE  minister's  POWER. 

You  will  not,  therefore,  in  going  out  into  your  work, 
disesteem  intellectual  preparation,  as  though  it  were  a 
thing  not  necessary.  Yet,  remember,  you  are  not  going 
to  dominate  in  the  community  because  you  are  so  pow- 
erful m  intellect.    You  are  going  to  meet  on  eacli  side 


33 


of  you  men  that  are  fully  your  equals.  You  ought  not 
to  lose  that  enthusiasm  for  truth  which,  if  carried  a 
little  too  far,  becomes  authority,  which  takes  on  the 
"  airs  "  of  right  and  of  rulership.  Every  man  should 
have  such  a  sense  of  what  is  becoming  to  truth,  to  vir- 
tue, to  piety,  and  to  God,  as  to  be  filled  with  a  sacred 
fire  of  championship,  with  an  enthusiasm  for  it.  But, 
after  all,  you  are  not  going  to  stand  in  this  w^orld  as  the 
old  priests  stood.  That  place  is  gone.  Men  are  not 
going  to  reverence  you  striplings  just  because  you  are 
called  "  ministers."  Boys  are  you  now,  young  gentle- 
men. May  you  never  forget  to  be  boys  as  long  as  you 
live  !  But  putting  a  Eeverend  "  before  your  name  is 
not  going  to  change  your  nature  or  your  function.  You 
are  to  stand  in  society  according  to  a  great  allotment, 
a  Divine  allotment  and  reason.  It  is  not  fear  of  you, 
it  is  not  reverence  for  you,  it  is  not  awe  for  tlie  sanctu- 
ary, for  the  day,  or  for  the  usage,  that  is  going  to  be  the 
secret  of  your  power,  if  you  have  any.  It  must  be  yours 
to  impart  to  all  the  other  great  organisms  of  society 
spiritual  tendencies  and  spiritual  directions.  Your  ge- 
nius, your  consecrated  intellect,  all  your  acquirements, 
all  your  knowledge  and  your  practical  skill,  will  be  vain, 
unless  you  succeed  in  opening  in  the  hearts  of  your 
hearers  individually,  and  in  the  community  where  you 
dwell,  a  higher  conception  of  what  life  means,  a  higher 
thought  of  w^hat  manhood  is ;  unless  you  are  able  to 
bring  down  the  invisible  life,  and  give  it  as  the  atmos- 
phere of  the  visible. 

SPIRITUAL  PERSPECTIVE. 

The  old  pre-Eaphaelite  painters  —  if  you  have  ever 


34 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


cried  and  laughed  over  their  pictures  —  for  they  touch 
the  fountain  both  of  admiration  and  of  tears — painted 
with  exquisite  coloring  and  profound  sensibility ;  but 
their  pictures  were  flat,  without  any  background,  with- 
out perspective,  without  foreshortening,  without  effect 
of  distance,  or  true  form,  or  atmosphere.  So  the  world 
is,  without  religion.  The  business  of  the  pulpit  is  to 
give  an  atmosphere  to  this  world,  and  to  put  things 
into  their  relative  places  and  due  proportions  ;  to  spread 
out  that  which  the  sun  brings  over  the  great  globe, 
when  it  rises  with  healing  in  its  beams.  Your  busi- 
ness is  to  accept  the  world,  to  accept  mankind,  the 
great  brotherhood,  and  to  love  them,  and  to  have  such 
sacred  commerce  with  the  other  life  that  you  become  a 
channel,  conducting  the  Divine  grace  to  men.  I  be- 
lieve, too,  that  ordinances  are  channels  through  which 
Divine  grace  comes.  One  thinks  that  baptism  is  one 
of  the  channels,  and  others  think  that  the  sacrament 
of  the  Lord's  Supper  is  another  of  the  channels.  I 
believe  that  there  are  these  side  channels,  but  the 
main  conduit  is  the  soul  of  man  that  loves  God  and 
loves  his  neighbor.  That  is  the  one  compendious  ordi- 
nance of  God,  and  that  is  the  artery  through  which 
God  mingles  his  grace  and  his  power,  to  be  felt  among 
men.  And  the  work  of  the  Christian  minister  is  so 
to  know  God,  and  Jesus  whom  he  sent,  so  to  realize 
them  in  his  own  heart,  that  he  shall  be  able  to  com- 
municate them  by  sympathy,  as  well  as  by  teaching,  to 
the  collective  body,  to  the  individual.  Yea,  they  are  to 
feed,  in  their  distributive  functions,  not  only  the  per- 
sons but  all  the  households,  all  the  associations,  all  the 
industries,  everything  that  belongs  to  the  community 


PRAYER, 


35 


where  they  are  placed,  —  thus  not  simply  indoctrinat- 
ing, which  is  excellent,  which  is  a  very  good  base  from 
which  to  depart,  but  really  imparting  a  Divine  inspira- 
tion to  all  those  organized  forces  by  which  society  is 
developing  itself 

The  church,  therefore,  stands,  in  my  thought,  as  one 
among  many.  Is  it  the  highest  ?  It  may  be,  ought  to 
be.  It  is  in  its  real  nature  the  highest ;  it  is  not  al- 
ways practically  so.  There  is  many  and  many  a  house- 
hold in  town  a  thousand  times  nearer  heaven  than  the 
church  with  its  minister  and  all  its  elders  and  deacons 
put  together.  There  is  many  a  single  praying  soul, 
there  are  poor  women  in  obscurity  and  in  poverty,  that 
God's  angels  dwell  with  more  abundantly  than  they  do 
with  those  that  stand  in  conspicuity  of  exhibitive  holi- 
ness. The  higher  life  is  very  low.  "  He  that  would  be 
chief  among  you,  let  him  be  your  slave,  let  him  be  min- 
ister of  all." 

PRAYER  AS  AN  ELEMENT  OF  PREACHING. 

Now,  I  have  spoken  already,  in  former  lectures,  of  those 
elements  that  are  personal  to  you  in  this  wark.  And 
I  shall,  this  year,  with  some  latitude  of  treatment,  speak 
of  those  auxiliary  elements  which  are  made  up  partly 
of  your  personality  and  partly  of  things  that  are  not 
you,  that  are  exterior  to  you.  And  I  purpose,  this  after- 
noon, in  order  to  come  by  and  by  to  the  subject  of  the 
prayer-meeting  in  the  church,  to  speak  of  prayer  as 
one  of  the  main  auxiliaries  by  which  the  minister  is 
to  perform  the  work  for  which  the  church  is  ordained 
among  men.  I  do  not  propose  to  discuss  the  question 
from  a  philosophical  stand-point.     If  a  man  should 


36 


LECTURES  ON  rREACHING. 


tell  me  that  physiologists  had  been  all  wrong  in  the 
matter  of  hunger  and  digestion,  and  that  it  had  been 
demonstrated  now  that  hunger  was  an  imaginary  feel- 
ing, and  that  coffee  and  bread  and  butter  acted  more 
througli  the  imagination  than  any  ether  way  ;  that  it 
was  very  w^ell  to  go  through  the  forms  of  taking  them, 
but  that  their  effects  were  really  through  the  imagina- 
tion, and  not  through  any  organic  relation, —  I  don't 
think  he  would  go  far  to  convince  me.  I  hardly  think  I 
should  be  satisfied  with  any  such  reasoning  as  that. 
If  a  man  should  say  to  me,  "  It  has  been  sliown  now^ 
that  we  have  no  real  knowledge  of  external  things,  vce 
have  knowledge  only  of  subjective  states,  the  light 
streaming  from  things  giving  some  idea  of  form  and 
color  and  so  on  ;  and  therefore,  if  a  man  would  deal 
with  himself  honestly,  he  could  sit  down  in  a  wilder- 
ness of  sticks  and  call  it  a  garden  ;  it  is  merely  sub- 
jective, and  depends  very  much  on  the  man  himself  and 
his  states,"  —  I  don't  think  that  would  change  my  feel- 
ing in  respect  to  flowers,  or  fruits,  or  anything  else. 

Now,  I  know  there  is  in  prayer  a  great  deal  more  than 
question  or  answer.  I  know  there  is  something  beside 
simply  those  questions  about  which  philosophers  are 
pottering.  If  prayer  w^ere  a  mere  order  sent  to  mar- 
ket, expected  to  bring  back  so  much  in  a  basket  every 
time,  I  then  might  enter  into  accounts  and  have  com- 
mercial dealing  on  that  subject.  The  barrenness  of 
prayer  is,  I  am  afraid,  somewhat  exposed  by  the  low 
state  in  which  it  too  often  exists. 

I  do  not  purpose,  either,  to  enter  into  that  other  ques- 
tion, so  profoundly  interesting  and  exciting  to  thou- 
sands of  men,  "  Is  there  any  answer  to  the  prayer  of 


PRAYER. 


37 


faith  ? "  I  regard  it  as  one  of  the  questions  of  the  future. 
It  :*eems  to  me,  if  there  be  anything  that  is  sure,  it  is 
that  Jesus  believed  there  was  a  realm  of  power,  into 
which  the  human  mind  could  rise  up,  which  gave  to  man 
not  only  control  over  himself  and  his  own  spirit,  but 
such  a  participation  in  the  Divine  nature  as  that  his  will 
would  positively  have  control  over  physical  laws  and 
forces.  There  are  powers  repeatedly  promised  or  hinted 
at  in  the  sayings  of  tlie  Saviour.  There  is  an  exalta- 
tion, —  not  perhaps  to  every  person,  because  all  gifts 
are  not  to  all,  —  but  to  certain  natures  there  are  exalta- 
tions that  carry  with  them  the  nascent  power  of  Divin- 
ity itself,  as  I  believe.  And  the  province  of  answer  to 
prayer  —  or  the  question  whether  men  have  compelling 
power  with  God  —  is  one  of  transcendent  importance. 
I  do  not  intend  to  discuss  that  now,  but  to  look  at 
prayer  simply  in  its  more  generic  features,  and  as  one 
of  the  inspirational  elements  by  which  the  church  is  to 
develop  in  the  community  its  higher  life  and  humanity. 

WHAT  IS  PRAYER  ? 

And,  looked  at  in  this  largest  view,  what  is  praying  ? 
Dropping  out,  as  we  may  say,  the  lower  elements  of  it, 
what  is  prayer  but  the  conscious  lifting  of  a  man's  soul 
into  the  invisible  realm,  into  the  presence  of  the  invisi- 
ble Father  ?  What  is  it  but  shutting  out  for  the  mo- 
ment, with  the  closing  of  the  eye,  all  conscious  sensu- 
ousness  and  secularity,  and  rising  by  the  effort  of  the 
soul,  through  silence,  up  into  the  region  where  God  sits, 
and  dwelling  —  though  but  for  a  moment  —  out  of  the 
body,  in  the  presence  of  the  Eternal  God  ?  You  may 
say,  when  once  there,    He  doth  thus  and  thus  and 


38 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


thus  " ;  but  all  the  details  come  back  into  this  generic 
element,  that  it  is  taking  men  out  of  conscious  sensu- 
ousness,  and  lifting  them  up  into  an  actual  spirituality. 
It  is  bringing  them  out  of  time  and  standing  them 
upon  the  threshold  of  the  eternal  world. 

The  habit  of  prayer,  looked  at  in  this  way,  elevates 
the  individual,  elevates  any  household ;  it  civilizes, 
spiritualizes,  etherealizes,  the  community  itself 

And  you  cannot  pray  so  poorly  —  if  your  prayer  be 
sincere  in  that  one  single  thing,  if  it  be  the  real  thought 
that  is  going  up,  and  you  have  the  conception  of  God  in 
your  heart  —  but  that  the  mere  soul-bath  one  gets  in 
things  unseen,  the  mere  lifting  of  the  wings  in  the 
great  beyond,  is  itself  worth  all  that  anybody  ever 
claimed  for  prayer.  And  one  of  the  very  first  things 
that  the  Christian  Church  and  Ministry  should  do  is, 
as  the  Saviour  did,  teach  the  disciples  how  to  pray. 

I  shall  treat,  then,  to-day,  first  of  personal  prayer, 
and  second  of  ministerial  prayer ;  and,  to-morrow  after- 
noon, of  social  prayer,  or  the  prayer-meeting. 

TEACHING  MEN  TO  PRAY. 

Inspiration  of  Desire.  —  As  regards  the  work  of  the 
Christian  ministry  in  teaching  or  inspiring  men  to  pray, 
I  have  to  say,  in  the  first  place,  that  one  of  the  secret 
arts,  —  if  you  use  the  term  "  art "  in  the  sense  of  wis- 
dom, —  one  of  the  subtle,  secret  arts  of  the  ministry  is, 
not  didactically  or  demonstratively  to  make  men  pray, 
but,  by  a  wise  knowledge  of  how  to  teach  them  the 
thought,  the  feeling,  to  inspire  them  with  a  desire  for 
some  such  higher  utterance.  If  a  man  preaches,  there- 
fore, hard  matters  of  fact,  if  he  all  the  time  secularizes 


PRAYER. 


39 


his  sermons,  if  they  are  ethicalized  to  death,  if  they  lack 
the  savor  of  the  something  better,  the  something  higher, 
the  something  nobler,  that  is  for  man  in  his  communion 
with  God,  men  will  scarcely  learn  to  pray  except  as 
they  learn  to  perform  any  other  duty.  But  the  secret 
of  praying  is,  to  want  to  pray.  The  secret  of  wanting 
to  pray  is,  to  have  excited  in  our  souls  certain  aspira- 
tions, certain  yearnings,  certain  desires.  The  conscience 
hungers  and  thirsts,  the  imagination  yearns  and  longs, 
the  affections  rise  above  all  the  bounds  of  ordinary 
experience  in  life. 

Prayerful  Preaching,  —  There  is  the  sense  of  wings, 
I  think,  in  every  soul  that  is  touched  with  the  least 
ideality,  and  it  is  desirable  to  so  preach  to  men  that 
they  shall  have  an  upward  yearning.  Break  up  base 
content.  Infuse  into  men  a  glorious  discontent  with 
things  as  they  are.  So  idealize  everything,  so  preach 
it,  that  the  necessary  things,  common  things,  —  all  of 
them,  —  shall  have  a  halo  about  them,  a  suggestion  of 
something  higher  and  nobler,  till  the  soul  is  in  an  ex- 
halant  state,  till  it  shall  tend  to  pray  always,  —  that  is 
to  say,  to  have  a  subtle  uplifting  and  going  up  of  the 
thoughts,  out  of  the  physical  and  material,  and  the  near 
and  present,  into  the  invisible  and  holy. 

Much  of  this  spirit  of  prayer  can  be  thus  infused, 
while  you  are  not  actually  praying,  through  your  way 
of  dealing  with  men.  It  is  whether  you  are  aiming  at 
the  base  of  their  brain,  where  lies  the  great  workshop  of 
life ;  or  whether  you  are  aiming  at  the  middle  of  their 
brain,  where  the  great  household  and  social  affinities  are 
playing;  or  whether  you  take  the  top,  where  is  the 
holy  spirit,  where  we  touch  God,  if  we  toucli  him  at 


40 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


all,  in  our  thought  and  inward  life.  Now,  sermons  that 
are  constantly  working  upward  into  that,  tending  toward 
that,  although  they  may  never  discuss  prayer,  are  all 
the  time  tending  to  spiritualize  men,  to  give  activity  to 
that  side  of  their  nature  whose  expression  must  neces- 
sarily be  invocation  and  ejaculation. 

But  let  me  say  that,  while  we  are  laying  the  founda- 
tion for  instruction  in  this  way,  I  have  felt  in  my  own 
ministry  the  constant  need  of  doing  a  great  many  other 
things.  To  tell  the  truth,  it  was  a  good  while  after  I 
had  come  into  the  church  that  I  was  like  the  deacon 
who  was  asked  to  pray  by  his  minister  and  refused ; 
and  who,  on  being  told  that  he  had  the  gift  and  ought 
to  pray,  said  he  knew  he  could  do  it,  but  he  always 
hated  to.  To  tell  you  the  truth,  I  hated  to  pray  ;  it 
used  to  be  a  most  disagreeable,  enforced  duty,  partly 
from  one  reason  and  partly  from  another,  which  it  is 
not  necessary  now  to  specify.  I  remember  that  it  was 
a  long  time  before  I  could  get  back  to  the  habit  of  my 
childhood,  and  kneel  down  and  pray  with  any  comfort. 
The  moment  I  bent  my  knee,  I  also  lost  my  thread  ; 
and  the  mechanicalism  of  attempting  to  pray  morning, 
noon,  and  night  would  ruin  my  soul,  I  think.  If  I 
had  to  pray  by  the  clock,  if  I  had  to  have  a  mechan- 
ical order,  it  would  derange  all  my  spiritual  tendencies. 
I  could  not  do  it.  Little  by  little,  I  came  to  the  feeling 
of  wanting  to  commune  with  my  Father ;  and  thus  I 
learned,  after  a  while,  that  we  had  to  go  into  our  con- 
gregation just  as  the  Lord  did.  His  disciples  came  to 
him  and  said,    Lord,  teach  us  to  pray." 

Unlearning  Wrong  Ideas.  —  Generally,  the  first  step 
towards  teaching  men  to  pray  is  to  get  them  to  unlearn 


PRAYER. 


41 


their  prayers.  Insensibly  they  have  formed  their  idea 
of  what  prayer  is.  It  is  the  way  that  the  minister  prays, 
it  is  the  way  that  their  mother  prayed,  it  is  the  way 
that  holy  men  have  prayed  whose  prayers  are  recorded. 
To  attempt  to  pray  in  that  way  is  worse  than  to  at- 
tempt to  wear  another  man's  clothes,  without  any  regard 
to  size.  It  is  worse  than  the  attempt  of  a  little  child  to 
walk  with  a  stride  as  long  as  the"  father's,  whose  hand 
he  holds.  For,  if  there  be  anything  in  this  world  that 
must  be  personal  and  absolutely  genuine  to  you,  it  is  the 
aspiration.  Suppose,  when  I  courted  my  wife,  I  had  got 
down  one  of  the  letters  preserved  in  the  family, — one 
of  my  father's  to  my  mother,  —  and  I  had  sat  down  and 
read  that  to  her  as  a  letter  of  courtship  !  It  was  a  very 
good  one,  in  its  time.  But  I  think  prayer  is  like  the 
powder  that  a  huntsman  uses  ;  he  never  can  use  it  but 
once. 

I  am  speaking  now  of  my  own  views,  and  not  of  the 
views  of  everybody.  There  are  prayers  that  are  like 
stairs,  —  you  begin  at  one  spot  and  you  always  land  at 
another  spot ;  and  persons  say  that  they  were  like  the 
stairs  that  Jacob  saw  in  his  vision,  on  which  angels 
ascended  and  descended,  and  that  it  takes  them  up  to 
heaven.  Such  prayers  are  perfectly  right  for  those  who 
want  them  and  can  use  them.  But  to  my  thought 
prayer  is  wings,  and  a  man  must  go,  not  where  the 
stairs  are  put,  but  just  where  his  own  will  wants  to  go, 
—  to  the  east,  to  the  west,  to  the  north,  to  the  south, 
higher,  lower,  with  many  or  few  strokes,  anywhere,  as 
birds  fly  in  the  summer  heavens  above  us.  And  you 
never  can  fulfill  the  Apostle's  injunctions,  "  Pray  al- 
ways," "  Be  instant  in  prayer,"  "  Pray  in  season  and  out 


42 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


of  season/'  —  those  things  cannot  be  done,  if  prayer  is  a 
set  act,  instead  of  an  evolution  of  feeling  or  a  holy  ejac- 
ulation. 

THE  ELEMENTS  OF  PRAYER. 

The  sources  of  prayer  are  like  the  beginnings  of  the 
Ohio  Eiver,  —  a  thousand  musical  springs,  separate  one 
from  the  other,  none  of  them  more  than  a  handful,  first 
pouring  out  from  the  rocksides,  and  by  and  by  joining 
together  to  make  the  great  river  below,  on  which  boats 
and  great  steamers  will  float.  And  we  have  the  river 
Prayers,  the  channel  for  accustomed  usages ;  but  the 
beginning  of  prayer,  that  which  is  to  make  the  great 
after-channel  full  always,  and  full  of  good  and  genuine 
prayer,  is  this  solitary  thought,  that  prayerful  emotion, 
this  impulse  of  the  heart.  The  devout  soul,  in  all  its 
ten  thousand  moments,  is  of  such  a  nature  that  it  is  all 
the  time  exhaling  heavenward  in  poetry,  in  rhapsody,  in 
narration,  in  reverie,  or  in  speech. 

For  prayer  is  not  asking  for  something.  I  have  noth- 
ing to  ask  for,  since  I  have  known  what  God's  Father- 
hood means.  I  have  but  one  petition,  and  that  is,  "  Thy 
will  be  done."  It  is  not  for  me  to  wake  the  sun.  It  is 
not  for  me  to  call  the  summer.  It  is  not  for  me  to  ask 
for  colors  in  the  heavens.  All  these  things  are  abun- 
dantly provided.  The  earth  is  the  Lord's,  and  the  full- 
ness thereof ;  and  I  am  God's  beloved.  He  died  for  me 
by  his  son  Jesus  Christ.  He  thinks  of  me.  Do  I  ever 
forget  my  children  ?  Shall  a  mother  forget  her  babe, 
cradled  in  her  arms,  by  day  or  by  night  ?  And  shall 
God  forget  us,  in  that  great  rolling  sea  of  his  thoughts, 
in  that  everlasting  fecundity  of  his  love,  in  the  infinite 


PRAYER. 


43 


bound  of  the  Divine  tenderness  and  mercy  for  man  ? 
Is  there  anything  left  to  ask  for  ?  When  I  am  tired, 
I  carry  my  weariness  there  and  lay  it  down.  If  I  am 
in  sorrow,  I  am  glad  when  I  think  of  the  Sorrowing 
One.  The  God  of  all  comfort  is  my  God.  When  my 
burden  is  heavy,  it  is  not  so  heavy  as  was  His  cross. 
When  the  world  seems  circumscribed  and  barren,  and 
I  a  stranger  and  a  pilgrim,  the  world  like  a  coach  is 
swinging  on  its  road,  and  soon  I  shall  hear  the  horn 
that  tells  of  its  arrival. 

Ten  thousand  thoughts  of  this  kind,  that  spring  from 
every  side  of  human  experience  and  touch  human  life 
in  every  part, —  these  are  elements  of  prayer.  So  that 
when  I  pray,  I  rejoice ;  or,  as  the  Apostle  would  say, 
"  giving  thanks  in  prayer."  Prayer  is  cheerful  to  me. 
Prayer  is  sweet  to  me ;  it  is  not  ascetic.  I  know  that 
I  am  wicked  ;  I  know  that  I  grieve  God  ;  I  know  that 
there  are  times  when  it  is  sweet  to  say,  "  God  be  mer- 
ciful to  me  a  sinner  ! "  So  there  are  times  for  the  maj- 
esty of  storms  in  summer ;  —  but  thunder-storms  do  nor 
march  in  procession  all  the  way  across  the  bosom  of 
the  summer.  There  is  more  brightness  than  darkness ; 
more  tranquil  fruitfulness  than  agitation  and  thunder. 

MAKING  PRAYER  ATTRACTIVE. 

And  now,  if  you  are  going  to  make  the  gate  of  prayer 
strait,  solemn,  awe-inspiring,  for  the  sake  of  making 
people  reverent,  coming  thus  through  their  sensuousness, 
and  trying  that  kind  of  empirical  method  to  excite 
devotion  in  them,  —  if  you  attempt  that,  what  do  you 
do  ?  You  make  prayer  unwelcome,  unlovely.  You  make 
the  soul  not  want  it.    But  if  prayer  is  communion,  if 


44 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


it  is  the  sweetest  of  all  converse,  if  it  includes  in  it 
everything  of  your  experiences,  high  and  low  ;  if  the 
children  in  school  or  in  the  household  can  kneel  down 
with  you  and  love  to  look  upon  your  face ;  if  you  can 
make  them  rise  up  from  a  scene  of  prayer  feeling  that, 
after  all,  it  is  "as  good  as  a  play,"  that  is,  that  there 
is  no  force,  nothing  that  is  angular,  nothing  that  re- 
strains in  it,  but  all  that  is  sweet  and  attractive  and 
joy-breeding,  —  if  you  can  do  that,  you  make  prayer 
lovely,  you  make  men  want  it. 

LIBERTY  IN  PRAYER. 

It  is  not  necessary  that  men  should  pray  a  great 
deal ;  it  is  not  necessary  that  they  should  pray  a  great 
while.  I  think  this  is  ordinarily  one  of  the  faults  of 
prayer.  It  is  one  of  the  faults,  as  I  shall  show  to- 
morrow, of  social  and  of  public  prayer.  Prayers  are 
of  such  a  kind  that  I  do  not  wonder  prayer-meetings 
are  the  lumber-rooms  of  the  church,  that  all  the  things 
that  are  good  for  nothing  else  are  stowed  away  there  ! 

We  must  broaden,  then,  and  enrich  our  conception 
of  what  praying  is,  of  the  liberty  of  it,  and  of  the  nat- 
uralness that  there  should  be  in  it,  and  of  the  right  of 
every  man  to  make  his  own  prayer.  "  What  if  I  cannot 
make  one  ?  May  I  not  use  the  forms  ? "  Yes,  just  as 
sick  men  use  crutches,  —  not  to  supersede  and  supplant 
their  legs,  but  to  strengthen  them,  till  they  are  strong 
enough  to  walk  without  crutches. 

But  suppose  a  man  is  unfruitful?  Well,  your  own 
slender  fruitfulness  of  prayer  is  better  for  you  than  an 
ample  fruitfulness  that  is  somebody  else's.  There  is  a 
great  deal  of  prayer  that  is  something  like  the  orna- 


PRAYER. 


45 


ments  I  see  in  parties,  where  they  bring  in,  in  a  tub, 
a  tree  to  which  are  tied  oranges  and  orange  blossoms ; 
for  a  night  it  looks  as  though  it  were  an  orange-tree  in 
full  blossom  and  full  fruit,  but  to-morrow  morning  you 
will  see  that  they  were  all  tied  on  overnight.  They 
answered  a  moment's  purpose ;  but  one  orange  were 
better,  if  it  actually  grew  there,  than  a  bushel  under 
such  circumstances. 

But  in  helping  your  infirmity —  I  would  not  be  strait- 
laced  in  that  matter.  Help  yourself  by  any  means,  but 
never  forego  liberty,  personal  liberty,  —  never  fold  your 
wings.  Never  pray  by  proxy,  when  you  can  pray  by 
silence  in  your  own  thoughts. 

Now,  to  inspire  this  spirit  of  prayer,  to  make  men 
enjoy  it,  is  a  supreme  art.  I  had  almost  said  that  when 
a  minister  has  the  power  to  inspire  gradually  in  his 
church  a  desire  for  praying,  an  enjoyment  in  prayer, 
his  work  is  comprehensively  done  in  the  world,  and  he 
could  almost  say  "  Let  me  die."  Because  I  think  that 
out  of  this  spirit  of  communion  with  God,  out  of  this 
spirit  of  nearness  to  heaven,  out  of  this  spirit  of  an 
upper  manhood,  out  of  this  spirit  of  the  gloriousness, 
the  joy,  and  the  beauty,  and  the  bounty,  of  the  heavenly 
land  that  just  overhangs  us,  —  out  of  this  comes  almost 
everything  in  the  church  that  has  moral  force  in  it. 

EXALTATION  IN  PRAYER. 

So  much  for  the  attempt  to  teach  your  people  and 
to  inspire  them  with  the  spirit  of  prayer.  The  other 
point,  a^nd  the  only  other  one  that  I  shall  deal  with,  this 
afternoon,  is  your  own  praying  among  your  people.  It 
is  very  difficult  to  speak  on  this  subject,  because  it  is 


46 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


SO  much  a  matter  of  constitution ;  so  much  in  the  way 
men  are  organized,  so  much  in  temperament,  so  much 
in  education.  I  think  I  may  say  that  no  part  of  min- 
isterial preparation  is  more  neglected  than  that  of  sing- 
ing and  praying.  We  are  indoctrinated  very  thoroughly, 
we  are  taught  in  the  history  of  the  church,  we  are 
drilled  in  the  order  and  discipline ;  but  how  much  in- 
struction do  we  need  on  the  subject  of  prayer !  I  do 
not  know  that  I  can  give  you  any  instruction  about  it 
except  this,  that  I  think  the  most  sacred  function  of 
the  Christian  ministry  is  praying.  I  can  bear  this  wit- 
ness, that  never  in  the  study,  in  the  most  absorbed 
moments  ;  never  on  the  street,  in  those  chance  inspira- 
tions that  everybody  is  subject  to,  when  I  am  lifted  up 
highest ;  never  in  any  company,  where  friends  are  the 
sweetest  and  dearest,  — never  in  any  circumstances  in  life 
is  there  anything  that  is  to  me  so  touching  as  when  I 
stand,  in  ordinary  good  health,  before  my  great  congre- 
gation to  pray  for  them.  Hundreds  and  hundreds  of 
times,  as  I  rose  to  pray  and  glanced  at  the  congrega-* 
tion,  I  could  not  keep  back  the  tears.  There  came  to 
my  mind  such  a  sense  of  their  wants,  there  were  so 
many  hidden  sorrows,  there  were  so  many  weights 
and  burdens,  there  were  so  many  doubts,  there  were 
so  many  states  of  weakness,  there  were  so  many 
dangers,  so  many  perils,  there  were  such  histories, — 
not  world  histories,  but  eternal-world  histories, —  I  had 
such  a  sense  of  compassion  for  them,  my  soul  so  longed 
for  them,  that  it  seemed  to  me  as  if  I  could  scarcely 
open  my  mouth  to  speak  for  them.  And  when  I 
take  my  people  and  carry  them  before  God  to  plead 
for  them;  I  never  plead  for  myself  as  I  do  for  them,  — 


PRAYER. 


47 


I  never  could.  Indeed,  I  sometimes,  as  I  have  said, 
hardly  feel  as  if  I  had  anything  to  ask ;  but  oh,  when 
I  know  what  is  going  on  in  the  heart  of  my  people, 
arid  I  am  permitted  to  stand  to  lead  them,  to  inspire 
their  thought  and  feeling,  and  go  into  the  presence  of 
God,  there  is  no  time  that  Jesus  is  so  crowned  with 
glory  as  tlien !  There  is  no  time  that  I  ever  get  so  far 
into  heaven.  I  can  see  my  mother  there ;  I  see  again 
my  little  children;  I  walk  again,  arm  in  arm,  with 
those  who  have  been  my  companions  and  co-workers. 
I  forget  the  body,  I  live  in  the  spirit ;  and  it  seems 
as  if  God  permitted  me  to  lay  my  hand  on  the  very 
Tree  of  Life,  and  to  shake  down  from  it  both  leaves  and 
fruit  for  the  healing  of  my  people  !  And  it  is  better 
than  a  sermon,  it  is  better  than  any  exhortation.  He 
that  knows  how  to  pray  for  his  people,  I  had  almost  said, 
need  not  trouble  himself  to  preach  for  them  or  to  them  ; 
though  that  is  an  exaggeration,  of  course. 

PERSONAL  HABIT  AND  PUBLIC  DUTY. 

And  now,  my  young  friends,  without  dwelling  longer 
upon  this  matter  of  ministerial  prayer,  for  my  hour  has 
expired,  I  have  only  this  to  say,  —  that  I  think  it  grows 
principally  out  of  the  habit  of  prayer  in  your  own  souls. 
Some  people  have  asked  me,  "  Do  you  ever  write  your 
prayers  ?  "  Why,  I  had  rather  undertake  to  ma.ke  a  dia- 
gram for  every  particle  of  my  blood,  what  it  should  do 
all  day,  than  to  attempt  to  sketch  out  a  prayer.  Prayers 
are  as  flowers  that  scatter  themselves  all  the  hillsides 
over,  and  all  the  valleys  through,  according  to  the 
will  of  the  shining  sun  that  draws  them  up  tow^ard  it. 
Prayer  must  be  spontaneous,  voluntary,  effluent  as  the 


48 


LECTURES  ON  ^REACHING. 


atmosphere  itself.  It  comes  to  those  wlio  pray  much, — 
I  do  not  mean  those  that  spend  a  great  deal  of  time  in 
the  closet,  because  you  can  while  away  a  great  many 
pleasant  hours  over  dull  books  with  interjectional 
prayers  ;  but  those  who  have  thoughts  that  rise  spon- 
taneously up  to  God,  —  for  that  is  prayer.  I  have 
friends  who  are  so  dear  to  me  that  I  hardly  ever  go 
a  whole  day  unconscious  of  them.  And  sometimes,  for 
hours  together,  T  couple  very  much  of  my  personal  his- 
tory with  theirs.  Have  you  never  had  friends  that 
were  so  dear  to  you  that,  though  they  were  a  thousand 
miles  away,  you  talked  with  them  in  the  room,  and,  if 
you  had  a  picture,  there  were  two  pairs  of  eyes  looking 
at  it,  not  one  ?  Have  you  ever  carried  on  this  kind  of 
double  existence  with  friends  ?  Well,  it  seems  to  me 
that  is  the  attitude  of  the  soul  that  loves  God,  —  that 
knows  itself  to  be  his,  that  expects  to  dwell  with  God, 
that  does  not  think  of  him  as  a  great  judge,  or  as  a  des- 
pot, but  as  the  sweetest,  most  genial,  most  affable,  the 
nearest,  the  noblest,  the  most  beautiful,  the  most  to  be 
desired,  the  altogether  lovely ;  the  one  that  made  the 
sense  of  beauty  in  me,  and  is  infinitely  more  fond  of 
beauty  than  I  am  ;  the  one  that  touched  in  me  the 
fountain  of  poetic  feeling,  and  is  himself  transcendently 
more  poetic  than  all  that  ever  sung  on  earth ;  the  one 
who  is  the  fountain  out  of  which  sprang  everything 
that  we  love,  or  revere,  or  desire  here  !  If  such  be  our 
thought  of  God,  and  our  life  is  hid  with  Christ  in  God 
every  day,  it  is  out  of  that  fountain  that  comes  pulpit 
prayer. 


PRAYER. 


49 


PRAYER  THE  SECRET  OF  STRENGTH. 

And  if  you  pray  in  the  pulpit,  and  are  dry,  do  not  be 
discouraged.  All  streams  run  small  at  first,  but  grow 
better,  grow  deeper.  Take  more  care  of  the  inward 
man.  Be  nobler.  Oh,  you  have  to  be  good  men,  you 
have  to  be  noble  men,  more  generous,  more  disinter- 
ested than  anybody  else  about  you  !  Sermons  will 
not  do  ;  it  is  life  God  wants  to  bless,  and  it  is  your 
life,  if  you  are  settled  in  any  parish,  that  God  will 
make  the  means  of  grace  to  men.  And  you  have  to 
*  live  lives  of  holiness,  not  after  the  Madame  Guyon 
sort,  or  any  particular  sort,  but  after  your  sort,  which  is 
the  purity  of  heart  and  the  simplicity  of  faith  and  the 
freedom  of  will,  ascending  toward  God.  Live  in  that, 
grow  in  that,  deepen  in  that,  and  people  will  begin  to 
say,  Our  minister's  prayers,  it  seems  to  me,  are  more 
nourishing  than  they  used  to  be."  Then,  when  men 
vex  you  and  trouble  you,  instead  of  getting  angry,  pray. 
Then,  when  troubles  come,  instead  of  feeling  tliat  you 
have  too  much  trouble,  pray  and  pray.  When  you  find 
that  talebearers  in  the  community  are  after  you,  and 
you  are  annoyed  and  vexed  in  your  parish,  and  there  is 
scandal  going  around  you  here  and  there,  pray,  pray  ! 
It  is  the  best  way  to  head  off  little  troubles.  It  is  the 
best  way  to  lighten  great  burdens.  Pray  always,  be 
instant  in  prayer.  Pray  deep,  deep  as  your  soul  goes, 
high  as  your  thoughts  can  rise,  and  then  you  need  not 
take  much  more  trouble  about  your  pulpit  prayers,  — 
they  will  come.  And  when  I  hear  a  parish  say,  "  Our 
minister  may  not  preach  as  well  as  others,  but  oh,  it 
is  a  balm  and  a  refreshment  to  hear  him  pray!"  I 

TOL.  II.  3  » 


5b 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


congratulate  them,  they  are  not  far  from  the  gate  of 
heaven. 

QUESTIONS  AND  ANSWERS. 

Q.  Would  it  not  be  well  for  the  congregation  to  be  made  to  feel 
that  they  are  expected  to  join  in  the  prayer  ? 

Mr.  Beecher.  —  I  suppose  that  when  a  man  stands 
before  his  congregation  he  feels  joined  to  them.  I  am 
conscious  of  that  myself.  I  seem  almost  to  pass  into 
my  congregation.  I  feel  as  if  we  were  all  one,  as  if 
my  utterance  were  the  utterance  and  the  voice  of  all 
the  sympathetic  souls  in  the  congregation.  A  great 
many  say,  "  Let  us  pray,"  I  suppose,  because  they  have 
got  to  open  the  door  somehow,  and  that  is  the  way  it 
has  been  customary  to  open  it. 

Q.  May  a  person  be  eloquent  in  prayer  without  a  vivid  imagi- 
nation ? 

Mr.  Beecher.  —  I  think  that  all  prayer  has  imagina- 
tion in  it.  I  think  that  faith  is  spiritualized  imagi- 
nation. Faith  that  works  by  love  is  ideality,  or  the 
imagination  joined  with  affection  and  working  in  a 
spiritual  direction ;  so  that  all  sense  of  God,  all  sense  of 
invisible  things,  means  imagination.  But  the  imagina- 
tion, like  every  other  thing,  may  exist  in  different 
degrees.  It  may  be  strong  enough  simply  to  be  recip- 
ient, or  it  may  be  strong  enough  to  be  both  recipient 
and  in  a  small  degree  creative,  or  it  may  be  positively 
creative,  or  efflorescent.  The  last  form  gives  the  high- 
est development  of  it,  carries  one  into  the  very  borders 
of  what  we  call  genius  in  that  matter.  I  think  there  is 
a  genius  of  prayer  just  as  much  as  of  poetry.  I  knew 
a  woman  so  illiterate  that  she  could  not  talk  better 


PRAYER. 


51 


than  a  common  negro.  She  came  from  the  South, 
though  she  was  a  white  woman,  and  lived  in  one  of  the 
southern  counties  of  Ohio.  When  she  began  to  pray, 
after  a  very  little  her  spirit  came  to  her ;  she  seemed 
to  drop  the  mortal  part,  and  she  fell  into  the  language 
of  the  Old  Testament.  I  heard  Judge  Fishback,  now 
gone,  say  that  he  had  heard  all  the  able  men  in  the 
West,  but  he  never  heard  a  human  being  who  had  such 
power,  who  affected  him  as  that  poor  ignorant  woman 
did,  when  she  got  into  those  higher  moods,  and  brought 
to  her  second  or  higher  nature  the  use  of  all  that  sub- 
lime language  of  the  Old  Testament  that  seemed  to  be 
the  channel  to  her  spiritual  feeling.  I  have  heard  old 
negroes  in  Indianapolis  pray  so  as  to  make  me  wish  I 
was  in  their  place.  There  is  a  genius  for  prayer ;  but 
then  it  is  just  as  it  is  with  the  element  of  beauty.  The 
highest  development  of  beauty  makes  you  an  artist ; 
then  you  go  along  down  until  you  come  to  that  devel- 
opment in  men  which  makes  them  decorators ;  and 
then  lower  down,  to  the  great  average  mass  of  men  who 
simply  have  a  sense  of  what  is  tasteful  or  beautiful.  A 
sense  of  beauty  is  distributed  from  the  top  to  the  bottom, 
though  in  different  degrees  ;  and  the  power  of  prayer 
follows  the  line  of  the  gift.  The  gift  is  great  in  some  ; 
it  belongs  to  all,  but  in  varying  degrees  ;  and  is  suscep- 
tible, like  all  otlier  gifts,  of  development  by  use. 

Q.  Some  men  do  not  have  the  power  of  expression,  —  of  word 
expression.  Now,  what  do  you  think  of  that  yearning  that  there 
is  in  the  Congregational  Church  —  I  do  not  say  whether  it  is 
right  or  wrong  —  for  something  like  a  liturgy  ? 

Mr.  Beecher.  —  I  should  say  that  that  ought  to  be 
met  by  hymns.    I  shall  come  to  that  in  my  lecture  on 


52  LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 

music.  There  are  no  such  prayers  on  earth  put  into 
form  in  liturgies  as  those  that .  have  been  put  into 
hymns.  The  trouble  is  that  nobody  thinks  a  hymn  is 
a  prayer.  When  a  prayer  is  being  made  in  the  form  of 
a  hymn,  —  in  which  the  music  gives  it  wings  indeed,  — 
people  think  that  is  the  time  to  scratch  their  head,  the 
time  to  stand  up  and  look  about,  or  to  sit  still  and  take 
it  easy,  the  time  to  hoist  the  window  and  get  a  little 
more  air,  the  time  to  look  after  their  hat,  the  time  for 
the  sexton  to  go  with  a  whisper  around  the  house.  The 
desecration  of  prayer  in  hymns  is  something  perfectly 
shocking ! 

The  Congregational  Liturgy  is  in  the  Hymn -Book,  I 
think.  Where  fifty  men  want  a  liturgy,  there  is  no  law 
that  I  know  of  in  heaven  or  on  earth  to  prevent  their 
having  one.  It  is  the  liberty  of  the  Congregational 
Church.  But  I  believe  there  is  one  already  made.  It 
is  said  that  liturgies  must  grow,  they  cannot  be  built ; 
and  this  liturgy  has  grown.  From  the  time  of  David  to 
the  time  of  Wesley,  and  on  down  to  our  day,  God  has 
been  inspiring  men ;  and  they  have  given  forth  their 
divine  utterances  in  psalms  and  hymns  and  sacred 
songs.  A  wise  use  of  the  Hymn-Book  will  develop 
more  liturgical  effect,  I  think,  than  can  be  got  in  any 
other  possible  way. 


III. 

THE  PEAYER-MEETING :  ITS  METHODS  AND 
BENEFITS. 

SUPPOSE  there  is  hardly  any  other  part  of 
church  service  that  is  regarded  with  so  little 
estimation  in  the  community  at  large  as  the 
prayer-meeting.  And  I  think  facts  will 
bear  me  out  in  saying  that  this  feeling  is  participated 
in  by  the  church,  on  the  part  of  the  greatest  number  of 
its  members,  nine  out  of  ten  of  whom  look  upon  it  as 
perhaps  a  duty,  but  almost  never  a  pleasure.  It  is  a 
"  means  of  grace  "  ;  and  they  feel  about  it  as  I  did  when 
I  was  a  boy  about  being  washed  in  the  morning  and 
having  my  hair  combed.  It  was  better  than  going  in- 
decent ;  but  it  was  an  exercise  that  I  never  enjoyed,  and 
I  was  heartily  glad  when  it  was  over.  In  most  churches 
I  think  that  is^  the  feeling  in  regard  to  the  prayer-meet- 
ing ;  that  it  is  dull ;  that  it  is  for  the  most  part  without 
edification  ;  that  in  some  mysterious  way  it  may  be 
blessed  to  the  soul's  good,  —  but  how  they  do  not  know. 
Persons  resort  to  it  when  they  cannot  very  well  help  it. 
Now  and  then  the  meeting  blazes  up  ;  there  is  a  revival ; 
there  is  some  novelty ;  something  has  transpired  that 


54 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


excites  a  momentary  interest ;  but  perhaps  ten  months 
in  the  year,  on  an  average,  the  prayer-meeting  is  es- 
chewed by  the  great  body  of  the  church,  and  by  the 
community  wholly. 

There  is  another  bad  side  to  it,  —  children  do  not  like 
it ;  and  anything  that  children  dislike  in  religious 
service,  habitually  and  universally,  has  reason  to  sus- 
pect itself.  There  is  an  element  in  true  religion  that 
follows  the  example  of  Christ,  —  the  children  wanted 
to  come,  and  the  Saviour  called  them  and  put  his  arms 
around  them,  took  them  upon  his  knee,  and  laid  his 
hands  on  them  and  blessed  them.  And,  from  that  day 
to  this,  I  think  that  where  service  is  delivered  in  the 
true  Christ-spirit  it  will  be  found  that  in  one  place  or 
another,  there  is  something  for  children ;  and  the  chil- 
dren will  find  it  out.  Where  the  minister  does  not  inter- 
est the  children,  where  the  meetings  of  the  church  have 
nothing  for  the  children,  something  ought  to  be  changed 
or  added.    Eevision  is  needed. 

THE  DEMOCRATIC  THEORY. 

Now,  it  is  notorious  that  the  prayer-meeting  is  "  belov/ 
par,"  and  therefore  it  may  be  the  more  striking  to  say 
that,  for  my  part,  I  regard  it  as  the  very  center  and 
heart  of  church  life,  —  not  necessarily  of  preaching ;  al- 
though its  reaction  upon  preaching  may  be  made  to  be 
vory  great.  We  have  thrown  off  hierarchical  methods 
of  worship  ;  we  have  advanced  —  I  mean  the  Presby- 
terian and  Congregational  Churches  and  their  confreres 
hcwe  advanced  —  the  theory  of  the  equality  of  the  church 
in  its  members ;  the  idea  that  it  is  a  family  and  body 
of  believers ;  that  it  has  in  itself  inherently  the  gifte 


THE  PRAYER-MEETING  :  ITS  METHODS  AND  BENEFITS.  55 

of  divination ;  that  it  does  not  derive  its  graces  through 
any  ministerial  channel  except  reason  and  the  ordinary 
methods  of  communication.  This  is  our  theory.  And 
it  behooves,  therefore,  all  those  that  believe  in  such  a 
constitution  of  the  church,  to  see  to  it  that  the  church 
does  develop  some  fruit  that  shall  sustain  the  theory. 
If,  therefore,  the  church  life  is  barren,  if  it  is  meager 
in  development,  we  lay  ourselves  under  a  just  lia- 
bility of  being  thought  to  disprove,  by  our  life,  that 
which  we  attempt  to  prove  by  our  philosophy  or  by 
our  reasoning. 

POWER  OF  INDIVIDUAL  EXPERIENCES. 

If  there  is  anything  in  the  world  that  ought  to  de- 
velop church  life,  it  is  the  gathering  together  of  the 
whole  body  of  the  brotherhood,  the  men  and  the  women 
in  the  church,  for  mutual  edification.  Do  you  not  be- 
lieve that  there  is  a  constant  communication  of  the 
Holy  Ghost  with  every  heart  that  is  striving  God- ward, — 
yea,  and  every  one  that  is  not  ?  Do  you  not  believe 
that  every  heart  that  has  been  made  willing  in  the  day 
of  God's  power,  that  is  in  a  recipient  state,  is  receiving 
from  day  to  day  a  realization  of  the  Divine  presence, 
an  inspiration  in  duties  ?  Is  there  not  a  life  going  on 
in  the  hearts  of  God's  own  people,  under  all  the  varied 
conditions  in  which  they  are  living,  that  is  worth  some 
record,  some  interpretation  ?  And  is  it  possible  that 
one  man,  no  matter  how  studious,  no  matter  how  gifted, 
—  is  it  conformable  to  our  idea  of  the  constitution  of 
the  church  that  one  man,  standing  in  the  pulpit,  shall  be 
able,  simply  because  he  devotes  himself  to  instruction, 
to  pour  out  upon  a  congregation  such  knowledge  of 


56 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


experimental  truth  as  inheres  in  the  life  of  the  congre- 
gation itself  ?  If  there  were  any  process  by  which  we 
could  look  inside  of  men's  lives,  their  unconscious  as 
well  as  their  conscious  religious  life ;  if  we  could  fol- 
low the  mother  in  all  her  moode  and  musings  and 
prayers  and  anxieties,  and  all  the  methods  by  which 
she  is  lifted  out  of  and  over,  and  carried  victorious 
through,  any  discouragements  and  trials  in  the  rearing 
of  her  little  church,  the  household  ;  if  we  could  go 
with  those  that  are  discouraged  and  downhearted  and 
not  naturally  hopeful,  whom  all  the  world  seems  to  beat 
against  and  to  crush,  and  see  how  their  feebleness  and 
weakness  is  from  day  to  day  helped  and  sustained ;  if 
we  could  gather  out  all  that  wliich  the  young  feel  in 
their  weary  moments ;  if  we  could  see  how  men  strive 
under  temptations,  against  pride;  how  men  that  are 
borne  in  upon  in  the  business  of  life  strive  against 
avarice  ;  what  battle  is  going  on  in  the  shop,  in  the 
street,  and  wherever  men  are ;  what  the  whole  round 
of  real,  practical  godliness  is,  in  its  weakness,  its  over- 
throw and  defeat,  in  its  matched  battle  or  in  its  vic- 
tories,—  if  we  could  gather  out  all  these  things  and 
bring  them  into  some  form  and  lay  them  open,  do  you 
believe  there  is  a  single  man  on  earth,  though  he  were 
a  prophet  or  an  apostle,  or  both,  that  could  equal  the 
revelation  of  the  truth  of  God  as  thus  given  in  the 
lives  and  history  of  all  the  members  of  the  church  ? 
The  great  and  wonderful  work  going  on  in  the 
lowest  and  the  least  is  more  stupendous  in  its  re- 
lations to  the  Godhead  and  the  eternal  estate  of  the 
blest  than  the  external  greatness  of  any  kingdom  in 
the  world  !    And  it  is  all  the  time  stimulated  and  de- 


THE  PRAYER-MEETING  :  ITS  METHODS  AND  BENEFITS.  57 

veloped.  Here  is  the  growth  of  passions ;  here  is  the 
growth  of  moral  emotions ;  here  is  the  dawn  of  love, 
waxing  stronger  and  stronger  unto  the  perfect  day ; 
here  are  the  joys,  the  sorrows,  the  upliftings,  the 
downcastings, —  all  the  ten  thousand  things  which  not 
only  teach  us  to  pray,  but  which  pray  in  us  and 
through  us,  with  groanings  which  cannot  be  uttered." 
Is  there  any  voice  for  these  things,  except  as  we  gather 
up  here  and  there  a  scrap  from  the  congregation  and 
make  it  known  ?  Now,  the  ideal  prayer  is  this  voice 
of  the  church,  telling  what  it  has  learned  of  God  in 
its  daily  conflict,  bringing  out  the  whole  of  that  great 
range  of  Christian  work  that  is  going  on  in  any  com- 
munity where  there  is  a  true  church  of  Christ.  For,  as 
the  Apostles  were  called  to  testify  that  they  had  seen 
Jesus,  and  that  he  was  raised  from  the  dead,  so  the 
Church  should  testify  that  Christ  is  raised  in  them  from 
the  dead,  and  tell  what  he  is  doing  by  his  work  in  them. 

THE  VOICE  OF  THE  CHURCH. 

Now,  I  hold,  in  the  first  place,  that,  according  to 
our  idea  of  it,  there  can  hardly  be  a  prayer-meeting 
in  a  hierarchical  church  ;  because  there  can  be  no  such 
thing,  as  we  understand  it,  Vhere  one  man  is  the  chan- 
nel through  which  the  church  worships,  and  through 
which  alone  God  speaks  to  the  church.  But  the  prayer- 
meeting  is  the  voice  of  the  church  and  of  all  its 
members.  It  belongs  to  our  peculiar  organization,  and 
it  can  scarcely  be  in  any  other  system.  Instead  of 
developing  or  encouraging  it,  many  of  our  churches  are 
asking,  "  Can't  we  help  our  leanness  and  our  barren- 
ness with  a  liturgy?"    I  do  not  object  to  a  liturgy 

3* 


58 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


more  than  I  do  to  banners  on  a  house,  if  it  pleases 
men  ;  but  I  would  not  regard  it  as  the  indispensable 
method,  not  as  something  that  we  need,  until  we  have 
exhausted  tliat  which  belongs  to  us,  namely,  the  power 
that  inheres  in  the  very  radical  idea  of  a  church  among 
us,  that  God  communicates  with  every  heart,  not  me- 
diatorially,  —  by  earthly  mediation,  —  but  by  direct  im- 
pact, by  direct  soul-piercing ;  that  he  thinks  into  men, 
and  that  their  thoughts  are  the  rebound  of  his  ;  that 
he  pierces  them  with  divine  emotion ;  and  as,  when  the 
sun  pierces  the  earth,  up  spring  flowers  and  out  burst 
fruits,  so,  when  the  soul  feels  the  Divine  inshining,  all 
that  is  noble  in  it  rises  efflorescent  and  victorious. 

And  when  you  shall  have  developed  that  in  the 
church,  if  still  you  complain  of  leanness,  and  want  of 
interest,  and  barrenness,  then  bring  in  a  liturgy,  then 
bring  in  some  otlier  thing  ;  though  I  think  the  com- 
bination of  a  liturgy  with  Congregationalism  is  the 
mingling  of  foreign  elements  that  do  not  go  well  to- 
gether. It  is  a  patch  on  the  old  garment ;  one  or  the 
other  tears,  —  and  it  does  n't  make  any  difference 
which ;  there  is  a  hole. 

This  being  the  general  idea  of  a  prayer-meeting,  you 
will  not  have  to  go  far  to  see  what  are  some  of  its 
advantages  and  what  are  some  of  its  hindrances.  Of 
these  things  I  shall  speak  to  you  plainly.  And  mostly 
I  speak  from  my  own  observation  and  experience. 
The  ideal  of  the  prayer-meeting,  then,  is  a  family  meet- 
ing, —  a  household  coming  together  and  telling,  all  of 
them  from  time  to  time,  what  God  hath  done  for  them ; 
helped  to  do  it  by  the  discriminating  leadership  of 
whoever  presides  in  the  meeting,  by  questions,  by  vari- 


THE  PRAYER-MEETING:  ITS  METHODS  AND  BENEFITS.  59 

ous  methods,  calling  attention  to  things  that  otherwise 
escape  the  notice  of  brethren,  and  bringing  out  the  full 
record  of  the  dealings  of  God  with  his  household,  that 
church. 

THE  PRAYER-MEETING  PROMOTES  FELLOWSHIP. 

In  the  first  place,  it  produces,  or  tends  to  produce,  the 
almost  unknown  quality  of  which  so  much  is  said  in 
the  New  Testament  and  so  little  known  in  the  church, 
— fellowship ;  a  sort  of  joyful  inspiration  at  the  sense 
of  a  "  fellow  "  by  your  side,  that  kind  of  relation  one 
to  another  which  persons  have  who  are  met  as  on 
Thanksgiving  day,  or  on  Christmas,  when  a  family 
comes  together.  Everybody  is  glad,  and  nobody  can 
tell  why,  except  that  It  is  my  brother,  it  is  my  sister, 
it  is  my  father  or  my  mother,  my  uncle,  my  aunt,  my 
grandfather.  It  is  that  feeling  of  heart-exultation, 
that  overflow  of  gladness  ;  and  persons  run  around 
and  laugh.  Why  do  you  laugh  ? "  "  Well,  because 
I  feel  so  happy ! "  Now,  gather  a  church  together ; 
bring  them  into  such  relations  with  each  other  that 
they  all  feel  that  yearning,  that  fraternal  feeling,  that 
gladness,  that  exultation  in  each  other.  Ah !  you 
never  can  do  this  as  long  as  you  seat  people  apart  in 
pews,  set  them  up  straight,  and  make  it  a  sin  for  them 
to  look  at  one  another,  telling  them  to  think  with  awe 
about  holiness,  driving  them  up  out  of  the  sphere  of 
ordinary  feeling.  They  may  come  in  very  properly, 
put  their  hats  down  very  properly,  sit  properly,  and 
nobody  speak  above  a  whisper,  but  you  cannot  pro- 
duce the  feeling  of  fellowship  so.  But  there  is  a 
genial  and  social  element,  a  loving  element,  if  men 


60 


lecturp:s  on  preaching. 


know  each  other,  —  as  they  will  come  to  do,  —  out  of 
which  fellowship  will  grow. 

IT  DISCOURAGES  CENSORIOUS  JUDGMENT. 

And  after  a  little  while  this  kills  uncharitableness. 
There  is  not  a  man  living,  with  any  grace  in  his  soul, 
who  does  not  feel  a  yearning  toward  another  that  has 
done  wrong,  and  owns  it,  and  endeavors  to  get  over  it. 
Do  you  know  why  it  is  that  we  feel  so  toward  that 
old  church- member,  forty  years  a  member,  and  still 
so  stingy  and  so  proud,  —  why  we  all  look  askance 
at  him  ?  It  is  because  he  does  not  feel  that  he 
is  sinful ;  it  is  because  he  does  not  feel  that  he  is 
proud  or  avaricious.  But  if  he  had  come  into  the 
house  of  God  among  his  brethren,  and  with  the  sim- 
plicity of  a  child  said,  "  Brethren,  you  know  my 
weakness,  but  you  do  not  know  how  I  have  struggled 
against  it";  and  if  you  had  heard  him  in  his  prayers 
ask  that  God  would  deliver  him  from  avarice ;  and  if 
he  had  talked  with  the  young  people  in  the  church, 
saying,  Now  look  at  my  example  ;  I  am  trying  to 
fight  against  it,  but  don't  you  get  into  any  such  course 
as  that,"  —  you  would  feel  a  sympathy  for  him.  Your 
fellow-feeling  for  him  would  soften  your  judgment  of 
him.  Another  man  is  naturally  a  peacock,  who  spreads 
himself,  and  who  is  full  of  the  glistening  reflections  of 
other  people's  brilliance  ;  he  is  laughed  at,  and  people 
pick  him  to  pieces, — for  there  is  a  vast  amount  of  joy- 
ous cannibalism  in  a  right  Christian  church,  —  and  they 
are  all  pulling  the  feathers  out  of  him  !  But  suppose 
that  man  in  the  gathering  household,  not  ostentatiously, 
not  going  around  as  a  professional  experience  -  teller, 


THE  PRAYER-MEETING:  ITS  METHODS  AND  BENEFITS.  6i 

should  at  his  proper  time  and  place,  and  with  evident 
sincerity  of  feeling,  confess,  "  This  is  my  disposition  ; 
my  brethren  have  spoken  to  me  about  it,  but  they  do 
not  need  to ;  I  know  it ;  it  has  been  revealed  to  me 
in  a  thousand  ways ;  and  I  do  not  like  it,  I  strive 
against  it,"  —  you  that  are  meek  should  help  to  restore 
such  a  one.  Suppose  you  think,  "  That  man  knows  it 
just  as  well  as  we  do."  Did  you  ever  see  a  brother 
tliat  would  point  at  his  younger  brother  and  say, 
"  That  fellow,  you  know,  has  got  a  club-foot  "  ?  We 
never  ridicule  the  infirmities  of  our  brothers  and  sis- 
ters, and  certainly  not  those  of  our  children.  They  ap- 
peal to  our  compassion,  as  should  the  constitutional 
moral  peculiarities  of  men,  especially  if  they  have  been 
developed  and  exaggerated  in  the  world. 

What  we  want  more  than  anything  else  in  this 
world  is,  that  men  who  would  go  to  the  stake  for  the 
doctrine  of  total  depravity  shall  admit  that  they  have 
some  of  it  themselves,  and  that  they  are  making  a 
brave  fight  to  overcome  it.  It  is  wonderful  what  a 
grace  there  is  in  sympathy.  God  blesses  it  in  a  great 
many  ways.  And  if  in  the  church  there  were  such  a 
thing,  if  you  could  by  judicious  ministration  here,  or  by 
gifts  there,  or  by  both,  bring  brethren  really  to  speak  of 
that  which  is  going  on  in  their  own  lives,  it  would  be  a 
great  help  to  them  and  to  others  ;  it  would  create  and 
foster  the  true  feeling  of  fellowship  in  the  church  house- 
hold, and  allay  harsh  judgments  and  uncharitableness. 

IT  CHERISHES  MUTUAL  HELPFULNESS. 

Now,  when  we  are  saying  that  there  are  a  thousand 
sweets  while  we  are  on  the  journey  to  Canaan,  we  are 


62 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


always  thinking  of  poetical  sweets.  But  the  journey 
lies  in  men  ;  it  lies  in  your  pride,  your  laziness,  your 
envy,  your  jealousy,  your  passions  ;  in  one  or  another 
form  of  human  weakness,  —  there  is  where  the  jour- 
ney is,  and  where  the  work  of  God  is  going  on.  Why 
should  not  men  be  trained  to  make  with  sufficient 
frankness,  not  indelicate  disclosures,  but  a  proper  and 
just  reference  to  these  things  among  brethren  for  one 
another's  sympathy  and  helpfulness  ?  If  you  had  rea- 
son to  think  that  your  brethren  were  manfully  striv- 
ing to  overcome  their  faults,  I  do  not  believe  you 
would  ever  meet  them  without  wanting  to  put  your 
arms  about  them.  I  know  persons  whom  I  never  go 
past  without  feeling  that  I  would  like  to  lay  my  hand 
on  their  head  and  bless  them.  Yet  they  are  some  of 
them  wretchedly  imperfect.  But  they  are  genuine, 
they  are  sincere  and  earnest  in  their  Christian  en- 
deavors. 

IT  DISCOVERS  MUTUAL  NEEDS. 

Fellowship  can  hardly  be  developed  by  any  fanci- 
ful measures,  —  fellowship  of  men  as  Christians.  You 
can  fellowship  ;  oh  yes.  If  ye  salute  those  that  salute 
you,  what  thank  have  ye  ?  If  ye  do  good  to  those  who 
do  good  to  you,  what  do  ye  more  than  the  publicans  or 
the  Pharisees  ?  If  you  like  folks  that  are  likahle,  why 
not  ?  That  is  all  down  hill.  You  like  this  one  because 
he  is  a  clean,  round,  splendid  fellow,  and  interests. you. 
That  is  all  well  enough ;  of  course  you  like  him.  But 
how  is  it  with  the  scrawny  folks  ?  How  is  it  about  the 
people  that  do  not  interest  you  ?  Do  you  like  them  ? 
Don't  you  go  about  picking  up  elective  affinities  or  spir- 


THE  PRAYER-MEETING :  ITS  METHODS  AND  BENEFITS.  63 

itual  affinities,  getting  your  companionship  here  and 
there  ?  Don't  you  go  to  the  table  and  take  everything 
that  has  sugar  on  it,  letting  all  the  plain  things  go  ? 
Get  hold  of  men  because  they  need  you.  You  should 
fellowship  with  men,  not  because  they  have  intellectual 
treasure  and  genius,  and  make  the  hours  so  golden  for 
you,  but  because,  like  you,  they  are  sons  of  God,  and 
fight,  like  you,  in  the  same  battle.  Soldiers  in  the  field 
have  what  they  call  battle-companions, — pledged  to  mu- 
tual helpfulness  and  ministration  ;  if  one  is  wounded 
or  falls,  the  other  assists  him  or  cares  for  him.  They 
go  into  the  fight  with  these  understandings.  Have  we 
any  such  thing  in  the  church  ?  Yet  there  never  was  a 
severer  battle  than  that  which  is  going  on  all  the  time 
in  the  church,  where  the  heart  is  touched  with  Divine 
aspiration,  and  is  struggling  against  the  temptations  of 
the  world.  The  church  should  be  trained  to  the  disclos- 
ure of  individual  needs  and  trials  in  the  prayer-meeting, 
so  that  those  needs  maybe  met.  It  is  part  of  the  min- 
ister's business  to  so  train  it.  There  are  a  great  many 
books  which  you  never  have  read,  and,  luckily,  never 
will  read ;  but  there  are  other  books  that  are  written 
by  the  Holy  Spirit,  page  after  page ;  there  are  books,  the 
reading  of  which  would  make  you  a  thousand-fold  wiser 
than  books  written  by  the  greatest  human  authors,  — 
what  God  is  doing  in  silent  souls.  You  ought  to  find 
it  out,  and  I  think  the  prayer-meeting  is  the  place  to 
find  it.*  Xo  man  will  answer  the  true  ideal  of  a  minis- 
ter, who,  having  a  church,  does  not  have  a  prayer-meet- 
ing, and  who,  in  the  prayer-meeting,  does  not  try  to  find 
out  what  is  going  on  with  his  people  by  this  kind 
disclosure. 


64 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


IT  DEVELOPS  POWER  IN  THE  CONGREGATION. 

This  serves  as  a  counterpart  and  a  counterbalance  to 
the  pulpit  itself.  In  most  churches,  the  pulpit  is  apt 
to  be  a  lectureship.  The  minister  goes  there,  and  what 
does  he  do  ?  He  gives  out  a  hymn  ;  it  is  sung  by  the 
choir,  and  the  congregation  hear  it.  He  reads  the  Bible, 
and  they  hear  it.  He  leads  in  prayer,  and  they  hear  it. 
He  preaches,  and  they  hear  it,  —  those  of  them  that  are 
awake.  He  gives  out  another  hymn,  and  they  hear  it 
and  go  home,  and  that  is  the  end  of  it.  What  liave 
they  done  ?  They  have  been  recipients ;  everything 
has  been  done  for  them,  upon  them,  to  them.  They 
have  done  nothing.  There  ought  to  be  a  counterbal- 
ance to  this.  This  is  putting  all  the  power  into  the 
pulpit.  But  one  of  the  things  that  should  measure  the 
power  of  the  pulpit  is  the  magnitude  of  the  living  power 
which  it  develops  among  the  congregation.  If  a  min- 
ister goes  into  a  church  which  is  all  pulpit,  and  stays 
ten  or  twenty  years,  and  goes  out  of  it  and  it  is  all  pul- 
pit still,  while  he  may  have  done  a  good  many  things, 
there  is  one  which  he  has  not  done,  —  to  his  discredit ! 
He  has  not  developed  the  church  power  as  distinguished 
from  the  pulpit  power,  —  the  brotherhood. 

It  is  a  good  thing  to  have  a  noble  father  and  mother ; 
but  one  of  the  things  that  noble  fathers  and  mothers 
must  do  is  to  bring  up  their  children  so  that,  as  they 
come  one  after  another  up  to  manhood  and  are  turned 
off,  they  too  are  noble.  And  it -is  through  these  minor 
meetings,  where  you  get  close  to  men,  and  convention- 
alities are  broken  down,  and  intimacies  are  established 
upon  other  grounds  than  those  that  rule  in  social  life. 


THE  PRAYER-MEETING:  ITS  METHODS  AND  BENEFITS.  65 

that  this  work  is  to  be  done,  if  it  is  to  be  done  any- 
where. 

IT  DISCLOSES  GIFTS  AND  GRACES. 

Then,  the  prayer-meeting  does  another  thing ;  it  de- 
velops tlie  gifts  that  are  in  the  church.  There  are 
gifts  that  lie  hidden, —  the  possessors  themselves  don't 
know  of  their  existence.  There  are  men  who  have 
received  no  culture,  and  yet  have  great  good  sense. 
There  are  men  who  have  had  no  opportunity  for  learn- 
ing the  art  of  expression,  who,  nevertheless,  have  that 
discrimination,  that  balance,  that  insight,  which  consti- 
tute tact.  They  have  comprehensive  judgments  of  men 
and  things.  They  are  able  to  manage  their  fellow-men 
out  of  doors,  to  control  business  and  carry  it  on,  under  a 
thousand  inequalities,  successfully  to  an  end.  But  they 
are  not  supposed  to  have  any  gifts  in  the  church,  be- 
cause they  never  volunteer,  they  do  not  say  anything. 
The  idea  largely  prevails,  that,  if  men  speak  in  meeting, 
they  must  speak  expositorily,  or  hortatorily,  both  of 
which  things  I  think  to  be  hindrances  in  prayer-meet- 
ings. Of  hortatoriness,  I  shall  speak  in  a  moment.  It 
is  the  lete  noire  of  prayer-meetings ;  it  is  the  devil  that 
ought  to  be  exorcised  to  begin  with.  But  men  say,  "  T 
have  nothing  to  say,"  thinking  that  if  a  man  speaks  he 
ought  in  some  sense  to  imitate  a  minister;  that  speak- 
ing in  a  prayer-meeting  ought  in  some  way  or  other  to 
be  ministerial,  and  that  the  speaker  should  discuss  a 
point,  unfold  a  doctrinal  truth,  state  some  discrimina- 
tion ;  that  some  catechetical  matter  should  be  explained. 
Now,  if  you  get  rid  of  that  idea,  there  are  a  great  many 
men  who  have  a  great  deal  to  say.   As,  for  instance, 


66 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


the  value  of  patience  is  up,  and  I  say,    Mr.  ,  what 

has  been  your  experience  in  respect  to  that  ?  You 
had  a  family  of  four  boys ;  they  all  died  drunkards, 
did  n  t  they  ? "  He  rises  very  slowly ;  he  is  very  broken 
in  his  language ;  he  says,  "  Yes,  they  inherited  that  ten- 
dency from  my  ancestors."  "  Did  you  find  it  very  easy 
to  bear  with  them  ? "  "  Oh !  when  my  first  boy  came 
home,  it  seemed  as  though  I  would  burn  the  house  down 
over  my  head ;  it  seemed  as  though  I  would  give  up 
everything ;  it  seemed  as  though  1  was  all  on  fire ;  my 
brain  and  everything  was  upset."  He  goes  on  and  gives 
the  way  in  which  his  feelings  were  changed.  You 
question  him,  you  help  him,  you  bring  him  out.  "  How 
was  it  when  the  second  one  came  in  ? "  And  that  man 
will  unfold  the  history  of  a  father-heart  striving  and 
moaning  after  faith  and  hope  in  God,  and  holding 
on  to  those  boys  that  are  bringing  disgrace  on  them- 
selves and  wretchedness  on  the  household.  There  he 
has  been  for,  to  my  certain  knowledge,  twenty  years, 
carrying  four  boys,  clinging  to  them,  losing  his  own 
life  almost  literally  for  their  sake.  There  is  a  grand 
epic  of  patience,  wrought  out  in  a  Christian  man's 
heart!  Cannot  I  develop  that  by  a  few  questions? 
And  when  the  Spirit  is  working,  and  when  men  are 
thus  speaking,  you  will  not  make  grammar  an  essential 
grace.    It  is  in  this  way  that  you  develop  gifts. 

WOMEN  TO  TAKE  PART. 

I  believe  in  women  speaking  and  praying  in  meet- 
ings, as  well  as  preaching  and  lecturing  and  voting,  — 
not  voting  in  meeting,  but  Voting.  I  feel  that  the 
church  has  lost  one  half  of  its  best  power  in  the  exclu- 


THE  PRAYER-MEETING:  ITS  METHODS  AND  BENEFITS.  67 

sion  of  the  sisterhood  from  speaking  in  our  meetings. 
But  revivals  know  no  law,  and  the  consequence  is,  that 
when  we  have  revivals  and  morning  meetings,  even 
the  stififest  churches  allow  mothers  to  get  up  and  ask 
prayers  for  their  children.  And,  once  get  them  on  their 
feet,  with  a  very  little  dexterity  you  can  catch  some 
very  nice  silver  and  gold  fish  out  of  them.  When  they 
open  their  mouths,  throw  in  a  question.  In  that  way,  I 
have  frequently  done  what  I  could  not  do  in  any  other. 
It  is  said,  Open  your  meetings  to  women,  and  you  will 
get  only  the  chaff.  Only  the  scatter-brains  will  speak, 
and  all  those  who  are  considerate  and  modest  will  be 
silent."  Why  should  they  not,  when  you  sit  glowering 
there  ;  and,  though  you  throw  the  noose,  they  know  you 
don't  want  to  catch  them  ?  There  is  no  encouragement, 
no  help,  no  temptation,  nothing  ;  and  only  those  speak 
that  don't  care  for  you  or  your  desires.  And  what  hope 
or  courage  is  there,  under  such  circumstances,  for  any- 
body that  is  self-respecting  ?  But  presently  prayers  are 
being  asked  for  children,  and  one  father  gets  up  and  says, 
I  have  a  son  at  sea,  and  I  ask  prayers  for  him  "  ;  and 
another  one  gets  up  and  says,  I  have  a  son  of  whom  I 
have  heard  that  he  is  lying  sick  of  a  dangerous  fever, 
and  I  ask  prayers  of  the  brethren  for  him."  ''Are  there 
any  other  requests  to  be  made  ? "  An  elderly  woman, 
rising,  says,  "  My  son  and  daughter  are  dead,  and  I  have 
five  of  their  children  to  take  care  of,  and  I  strive  with 
poverty,  according  to  my  best  endeavors ;  I  ask  the 
sympathy  and  the  prayers  of  the  brethren  for  these 
five."  "  How  many  are  there,  madam,  did  you  say  ?  " 
"  Five."  "  How  old  are  they  ? "  Well,  the  oldest  is  now 
seventeen,  and  he  is  the  strongest  one  among  us,  and 


68 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


then  —  "  What  are  the  ages  of  the  others,  madam  ? 
What  is  the  disposition  of  this  eldest  son,  and  has  he 
e\'er  shown  any  inclination  toward  religious  things  ? " 
"  Yes,  sir;  he  has,  at  times,  shown  a  good  deal  of  feeling." 
I  can  get  a  good  speech  out  of  her  before  she  knows  it, 
and  you  know  it  will  be  substance,  every  bit  of  it ;  it 
will  be  meat.  And  so  you  can  get  a  well-regulated 
woman  talking  in  prayer-meeting,  without  anybody 
being  shocked  or  hurt.  In  that  sly  way,  young  gentle- 
men, you  can  circumvent  the  old  fogies  and  have  the 
women  talk  in  meeting  without  offence. 

If  I  have  any  remembrance  of  my  own  mother  ;  if 
I  have  a  remembrance  of  the  other,  the  second  mother, 
that  brought  me  up ;  if  I  have  any  remembrance  of  my 
sisters  and  of  those  aunts  that  were  more  than  Virgin 
Marys  to  me,  and  who  dedicated  themselves  to  virgin- 
ity that  they  might  give  their  lives  to  charity  ;  if  I  re- 
member the  prayers  that  they  uttered  over  us  little 
children,  the  instruction  they  gave  us  out  of  the  Word 
of  God,  the  conversations  that  they  held,  —  I  know  that 
I  have  derived  the  deepest,  the  sweetest,  and  the  truest 
religious  impressions  of  my  life  from  the  utterances  of 
woman.  And  if  woman  has  these  gifts,  and  can  speak 
to  children  in  the  household,  I  say  that  she  has  no 
right  to  put  her  light  under  the  bushel  of  the  family, 
but  that  she  should  set  it  on  a  candlestick,  where  it 
shall  light  all  that  are  in  the  house.  And  the  church 
has  a  right  to  the  gifts  of  these  women,  —  the  mothers 
and  the  sisters  that  are  doing  the  great  work  of  life.  It 
is  gold  too  precious  to  be  lost,  and  we  are  dying  for 
want  of  just  such  material ;  and  yet,  on  a  mere  quid- 
dity, on  a  mere  punctilio,  we  are  excluding  from  the 


THE  PRAYER-MEETING :  ITS  METHODS  AND  BENEFITS.  69 

church  elements  that  would  make  us  incomparably  rich. 
And  so  we  have  our  beanpoles  of  propriety,  but  not  a 
morning-glory  twining  round  about  them  and  blossom- 
ing to  the  glory  of  God. 

I  will  not  in  this  indirect  way  attempt  to  make  a 
lecture  on  women's  rights.  I  simply  bring  this  in  as 
an  illustration,  —  and  it  will  also  suggest  a  way  in 
which  you  can  bring  in  unpalatable  subjects  merely  as 
illustrations. 

(I  was  speaking  about  the  way  in  which  the  prayer- 
meeting  develops  the  gifts  of  the  members  of  the  church, 
and  all  these  remarks,  therefore,  you  will  set  down 
under  that  head.) 

THE  PRAYER-MEETING  MAKES  TRUTH  PERSONAL. 

Then,  meetings  for  prayer,  properly  managed,  take 
truth  from  its  generic  condition  and  bring  it  home  to 
men  as  a  personal  thing.  It  becomes  casuistry.  You 
develop  cases  of  conscience ;  you  develop  grades  of 
disposition ;  you  develop  truth  in  its  relations,  as  you 
cannot  in  any  other  way. 

One  of  the  troubles  which  every  minister  of  any  stand- 
ing and  experience  has  found,  has  been  how  to  fashion 
sermons  so  that  a  great  truth  could,  after  all,  be  made 
to  branch  till  it  reached  out  and  touched  all  the  indi- 
vidual cases.  He  has  had  the  feeling  come  over  him, 
"  Well,  they  are  simply  infinite  !"  And  a  sermon  may 
begin  like  the  handle  of  a  splint  broom,  but  it  will  end 
with  as  many  different  points  as  there  are  in  the  end  of 
the  broom.  So  you  feel  that  you  cannot  do  it.  True,  you 
cannot  so  well  do  it  in  the  pulpit.  But,  if  you  have  a 
living  church,  —  and  it  depends  upon  yourself  whether 


70 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


you  have  or  not, —  if  you  make  your  prayer-meetings 
so  social,  so  genial,  so  elastic,  so  open-mouthed  and 
open-hearted,  that  you  can  ask  anybody  questions  and 
they  are  not  ashamed  to  talk,  and  talk  goes  backward 
and  forward  among  them,  —  and  almost  every  man  sees 
things  a  little  differently  from  his  neighbor,  —  and  one 
and  another  asks,  "  What  shall  I  do  in  such  and  such  a 
case  ?  "  —  you  will  find  that  a  truth  which  you  state 
generically  instantly  becomes  specific,  —  that  it  is  mul- 
titudinous. I  ain  continually  struck  with  this,  that 
when  I  introduce  a  topic  in  prayer-meeting,  and  open  it 
as  it  runs  in  my  mind,  I  hardly  get  through  presenting 
it  —  I  am  hopeful,  I  look  at  things  in  the  light  of  courage 
and  hope  — •  before  a  brother  on  my  left  hand,  who  always 
lias  a  kind  of  melancholy  caution,  brings  me  up  with, 
"  Don't  you  think.  Brother  Beecher,  that  if  persons  were 
to  follow  that  out  in  such  and  such  relations  it  would 
be  liable  to  such  and  such  perversions  ? "  "  Oh  yes,  I 
never  thought  to  stop  up  that  hole  " ;  so  then  I  give  it 
a  little  plaster  in  that  direction.  And  so  it  goes  all 
around,  and  men  look  at  the  subject  from  some  ex- 
perience of  their  own,  from  some  habitude  of  their  own 
minds,  from  some  new,  different  philosophy  of  their  own. 
They  put  questions  which  result  in  the  end  in  bringing 
this  truth  home,  from  its  generic  state,  to  a  personal 
truth,  to  black  and  white,  to  each  particular  person. 
He  gets  it  as  he  wants  it. 

So  truth,  when  you  bring  it  into  a  congregation,  is 
like  a  roll  of  cloth,  which  may  be  cut  and  fitted  to  all 
the  different  sizes  of  men.  It  comes  in  cloth,  it  goes 
out  garments.  When  you  come  to  see  how  truth  stands 
in  its  relations  to  the  individual  man ;  the  infinity  of 


THE  PRAYER-MEETING  :  ITS  METHODS  AND  BENEFITS.  71 

it,  the  universality  of  it,  the  multitiidinousness  of  it, 
the  richness,  the  wonderful  power  in  it,  —  this  is  one 
of  the  most  convincing  evidences  of  its  divinity. 
The  truth,  when  you  come  to  study  it  in  relation  to 
men's  wants,  is  like  nature  itself,  when  you  come  to 
study  it  in  all  its  infinite  diversities  and  minute  dif- 
ferences. This  is  the  work  of  the  prayer-meeting. 
Don't  you  begin  to  feel  ashamed  that  you  have  done 
so  little  with  the  prayer-meeting  ?  Don't  you  begin 
to  think  that  the  prayer-meeting  is  the  long-lost  art, 
and  that  the  church  ought,  more  than  on  anything 
else,  to  pivot  on  that  ?  I  think  a  church  is  more 
likely  to  live  a  great  while  that  pivots  on  the  prayer- 
meeting,  than  those  are  that  pivot  on  the  pulpit. 

IT  ATTRACTS  OUTSIDERS. 

There  is  also  in  this  matter  an  application  of  the 
prayer-meeting  to  which  I  wish  to  call  your  attention,  — 
the  effect  which  a  prayer-meeting  of  this  kind  has,  from 
time  to  time,  upon  outsiders,  upon  spectators.  In  the 
first  place,  the  freshness,  the  liveliness,  and  the  reality 
of  it  bring  men  to  it.  Your  meeting  will  be  crow^ded 
in  a  little  while.  It  will  grow ;  and  by  and  by  you 
will  make  chords  vibrate  in  men's  hearts,  as  you  bring 
out  the  power  that  is  wTOught  by  the  Holy  Ghost  in  the 
personal  experience  of  individuals,  —  filling  the  whole  air 
with  a  new  sense  of  Providence  and  Divinity,  sending 
men  home  enlightened  and  strengthened  in  the  midst 
of  their  struggles,  and  enriched  by  the  conscious  pres- 
ence of  God  in  a  thousand  ways.  People  will  come  to 
the  meeting ;  and  you  cannot  get  a  room  big  enough  to 
hold  them  under  such  circumstances. 


72 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


THE  EFFECT  ON  SPECTATORS. 

I  call  your  attention  to  the  effect  which  it  produces 
upon  spectators  who  are  not  Christians.  Take  them 
into  an  ordinary  prayer-meeting,  and  it  is  the  most 
dangerous  place  you  can  bring  them  to.  It  produces 
on  them  very  much  a  sense  of  imprisonment.  It  is 
galley-work,  and  they  don't  like  it.  The  idea  of  going 
to  the  trouble  of  being  convicted  and  converted  in  order 
to  get  into  a  prayer-meeting  is  rather  discouraging  to 
them ;  and  I  must  say  I  don't  blame  them.  But  let  a 
man  going  by  step  into  a  real  prayer-meeting.  He 
hears  singing  in  there,  and  rousing  good  singing  too. 
He  rather  likes  hymns,  and  he  slips  inside  of  the  door 
and  sits  down.  A  man  gets  up,  after  the  meeting  has 
advanced,  and  says,  "  Brethren,  our  pastor  has  been 
opening  up  the  subject  of  Sincerity,  and  it  came  pretty 
near  to  me.  I  try  to  be  sincere,  but  I  must  confess 
that  in  conducting  my  business  I  slide  sometimes, 
before  I  think.  Now,  yesterday  I  went  into  a  transac- 
tion something  like  this,"  —  and  he  gives  an  account 
of  an  affair  in  which  he  had  been  a  little  too  quick  for 
the  other  man,  and  rather  got  the  best  end  of  the 
bargain  ;  and  he  says,  "  Well,  I  did  n't  feel  particularly 
happy  all  the  way  back  to  the  store.  My  conscience 
rather  accused  me,  and  I  made  up  my  mind  that  I 
should  go  and  rectify  that  thing."  The  man  who 
slipped  in  is  the  very  man  with  whom  he  had  that 
dealing,  and  who  had  said  of  him, Damn  him  !  he  is  a 
member  of  the  church."  That  is  what  he  said  imme- 
diately after  the  business  transaction,  but  what  does  he 
say  now  ?      Bless  his  heart  I    The  old  fellow  has  some 


THE  PKAYER-MEETING :  ITS  METHODS  AND  BENEFITS.  73 


feeling,  has  n't  he  ? "  Now,  any  man  that  can  change 
a  "damn"  into  a  ''bless"  is  doing  a  good  work.  But 
here  is  a  man  who  judges  men  by  no  charitable  stand- 
ard, who  sees  things  as  they  are  in  business.  He  comes 
in  and  sees  a  man  who  had  all  his  life  had  faults.  He 
finds  out  that  that  man  knows  them,  and  is  trying  to 
get  over  them.  He  knows  that  that  man  tried  sharp 
practice  over  him,  and  sees  that  he  feels  sorry  for  it. 
He  is  speaking  about  it,  though  in  an  impersonal  way. 
"  Really,"  says  the  new-comer,  I  guess  there  is  some 
sincerity,  after  all,  in  religion."  When  he  goes  home, 
he  says  to  his  wife,  "  Where  do  you  suppose  I  have 
been  ?  "  "  Well,  I  don't  know.  I  suppose  around  to 
Fox's,  to  see  Humpty  Dunipty."  "No,  guess  again. 
W^here  do  you  suppose  I  have  been  ?  "  "  Well,  I  don't 
know.  Some  theater."  "  No,  guess  once  more."  "  I 
give  it  up."  I  have  been  around  to  the  prayer-meet- 
ing." That  is  a  surprise  to  her.  Says  he,  "  I  tell  you 
what  ;  it  was  really  a  good  meeting,  I  positively 
enjoyed  it."  He  has  to  tell  it  all.  When  the  time  for 
the  next  meeting  comes  round,  he  says,  "  Put  on  your 
shawl,  my  dear,  and  let  us  go  around  to  the  prayer- 
meeting  and  see  what  we  will  get."  They  go  around, 
and  find  that  it  is  fresh,  and  means  business.  He  may 
not  believe  all  he  hears  there,  but,  after  all,  there  are 
many  truths.  Men  come  together,  and  they  take  hold 
of  the  very  roots  of  subjects  and  discuss  them.  They 
try  to  be  honest.  That  man  cannot  help  himself.  He 
is  already  convicted.  He  has  not  a  Mount  Sinai  con- 
viction, perhaps,  but  he  may  have  a  little  haycock 
conviction.  He  has  got  a  consciousness  of  faults.  He 
has  got  the  preliminary  tentative  states  that,  under 
vol..  II.  4 


74 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


ordinary,  suitable,  fair  instruction,  will  develop  in  him. 
Manly  sympathy,  really  humane  feeling  toward  him, 
will  bring  that  man  right  along.  Ask  him,  "  Don't  you 
think  you  have  faults  ?  Don't  you  commit  sins  ?  Are 
you  not  guilty  of  derelictions  both  to  God  and  man  ? 
Is  n't  it  time  for  you  to  begin  to  think  about  this 
thing  ?  " 

Other  men  come  in  there.  They  are  exhilarated, 
they  are  lifted  up.  Don't  let  a  prayer-meeting  know 
that  there  is  anybody  there  but  the  "  brethren."  Don't 
say  a  word  to  ''sinners."  I  would  shut  up  a  man's 
mouth  who  began  to  talk  in  that  way,  as  quick  as  I 
would  turn  the  faucet  of  a  wine-cask  if  the  wine  were 
leaking  away.  It  is  the  actual  sight  of  what  we  mean 
by  piety,  it  is  the  sight  of  imperfection,  it  is  the  hear- 
ing of  groans,  it  is  the  sight  of  tears,  it  is  the  recital 
of  joys,  it  is  faith,  it  is  hope,  it  is  love,  it  is  fellowship, 
it  is  helpfulness,  —  not  in  any  of  their  grander  poetical 
forms,  but  as  they  exist  in  actual  men  and  women,  — 
it  is  the  battle  of  life  going  on  before  men's  eyes, 
that  make  the  most  imperative  and  impersonal  of  all 
w^ays  of  preaching  the  truth  to  many  men.  There  is 
many  a  man  that  can  stand  the  great  fifteen-inch  gun 
of  the  pulpit,  that  cannot  stand  this  mitrailleuse,  this 
multitudinous  fire  of  the  whole  church. 

I  have  been  accustomed  in  times  of  revivals  of  re- 
ligion to  say  to  persons  awakened  and  coming  slowly 
along  in  their  steps  toward  the  light,  "  Come  to  the 
morning  prayer-meeting."  The  most  converting  agency 
I  have  known  in  my  whole  ministry  has  been  the  morn- 
ing prayer-meeting,  when  I  could  keep  the  hounds  off 
of  men,  so  that  they  should  not  be  exhorting  them  and 


THE  PRAYER-MEETING:  ITS  METHODS  AND  BENEFITS.  75 

telling  them  how  sinful  they  were.  Let  them  alone ; 
let  them  see  what  the  grace  of  God  is  in  the  brother- 
hood. 

QUESTIONS  AND  ANSWERS. 
Q.  How  would  you  stop  those  exhorters  ? 

Mr.  Beecher.  —  Well,  you  cannot  always  stop  them. 
You  have  got  to  drive  prayer-meetings  just  as  you  do 
horses.  You  cannot  keep  flies  from  biting  them,  nor 
them  from  whisking  their  tails,  in  a  summer's  day. 
You  have  got  to  make  the  best  of  your  annoyances. 
The  absurd  saints  that  I  have  had,  the  ridiculous  crea- 
tures that  have  come  in,  the  interruptions  that  we  have 
had !  Meetings  brought  to  a  blessed  point,  —  like  a 
cow  that  has  given  a  good  bucket  of  milk  only  to  put 
her  foot  in  it,  —  to  be  entirely  ruined  !  There  is  a  kind 
of  spiritual  hummers  that  run  around  to  prayer-meet- 
ings. I  will  tell  you  more  about  that,  however,  next 
week. 

Q.  What  about  the  length  of  prayers  in  prayer-meetings  ? 

Mr.  Beecher.  —  Short,  generally,  but  long  when  you 
can't  help  it.  I  would  n't  want  the  Ohio  to  overflow 
its  banks,  or  the  Miami  to  run  over,  but  once  a  year. 
We  used  to  let  them  when  the  snows  melted  on  the 
mountains,  —  we  could  n't  help  ourselves.  Down  came 
the  torrents ;  and  I  have  seen  the  biggest  boats  navi- 
gating the  streets  of  Lawrenceburg.  I  liked  once  a 
year  to  have  a  good  freshet ;  but  I  did  n't  want  any 
more. 

That  matter,  I  think,  may  almost  always  be  controlled 
with  a  very  little  drill. 


76 


LECTURES  OK  PREACHING. 


Q.  I  would  like  to  hear  a  word  further,  if  you  are  not  going  to 
take  it  up  hereafter,  as  to  how  the  leader  of  the  meeting  shall 
open  the  subject.  There  is  danger  of  his  so  opening  it  that  peo- 
ple will  say,  "  Well,  I  can't  say  anything  after  that ! ''  What  is 
the  way  in  which  a  leader  shall  open  a  meeting  so  that  everybody 
shall  feel  free  to  speak  after  it  ? 

Mr.  Beecher.  —  Yes,  that  is  a  very  important  con- 
sideration. One  of  the  things  that  every  minister 
ought  to  have  implanted  in  him  is,  that  he  is  not  going 
to  do  well  every  time,  and  that  he  is  not  going  to  do 
well  at  first,  always,  and  that  he  has  got  to  take  up  his 
cross  and  to  carry  it  in  just  such  things  as  these.  He 
has  got  to  learn  his  trade  while  he  is  practicing  it 
for  a  living.  In  opening  a  prayer-meeting,  very  likely 
no  directions  can  be  given.  Practice  will  teach.  With 
any  considerable  gumption  to  begin  with,  you  will  very 
soon  see  when  you  make  your  opening  too  good.  Avoid 
making  too  good  speeches  at  the  beginning  of  a  meet- 
ing; do  not  say  all  that  you  have  to  say  on  a  sub- 
ject. On  the  other  hand,  avoid  any  such  magisterial 
manner,  any  such  jealousy  of  the  cloth,  that  nobody 
will  feel  disposed  to  come  forward.  Then,  if  they  will 
not  come  up  when  you  have  opened  a  subject,  question 

them,  call  them  up.  "  Mr.  ,  what  do  you  think  of 

that  idea  ? "   Well,  Mr.  has  to  say  something,  and 

the  moment  he  does,  you  tackle  him,  because  he  won't 
say  much  unless  you  dispute  him,  and  you  will  have  a 
little  bit  of  an  argument.  But,  the  moment  anybody 
begins  to  talk,  somebody  else  puts  in  a  word,  and  you 
ask  some  other  one  for  his  views.  Then  it  will  go 
around.  There  are  a  thousand  arts  of  that  kind  that 
are  perfectly  innocent  and  allowable,  which  a  man 
must  learn. 


THE  PRAYER-MEETING :  ITS  METHODS  AND  BENEFITS.  77 

Why,  young  gentlemen,  being  a  minister  means 
being  busy,  I  can  tell  you,  from  one  end  to  the  other 
of  your  life ;  either  busy  in  your  study,  busy  on  the 
street,  or  busy  in  your  meetings.  If  anybody  has  got 
to  be  observant,  fruitful,  wise,  full  of  tact  and  inspira- 
tion, it  is  the  man  that  undertakes  to  lead  a  congrega- 
tion in  prayer-meetings. 

I  may  still  further  answer  to  that  question,  that  a 
wise  pastor,  who  is  conducting  meetings,  will  be  con- 
ducting meetings  all  the  Week  long.  There  will  be  an 
undei'tone  in  his  mind.  All  manner  of  feelings  and 
thoughts  are  running  through  your  mind,  and  you 
may  just  as  well  have  something  which  will  be  of 
value  to  you.  You  see  a  man.  You  say  to  yourself, 
"  I  wonder  how  I  can  get  at  that  man  ;  I  wonder  how^ 
his  sensibilities  are."  You  will  survey  him,  and  look 
at  him,  as  an  engineer  looks  at  a  fort.  You  say,  "  How 
can  I  attack  that  man  ? "  General  Sherman  never  rides 
through  a  country,  I  believe,  without  looking  at  the 
topography  of  it.  He  says,  There  is  a  good  place  for  a 
battery  ;  how  finely  my  flanks  would  be  protected  over 
there  ! "  He  is  engaged  in  noting  the  military  advanta- 
ges of  the  country. 

A  minister  has  got  to  be  busy  all  the  while.  When- 
ever you  see  a  man,  eat  him.  Whenever  you  see  a  man, 
dissect  him.  Think  how  you  w^ould  approach  this  one  ; 
how  you  w^ould  get  at  his  conscience,  whether  by  going 
down  through  the  scuttle  of  pride  and  vanity,  whether 
by  coming  up  through  the  cellar  of  shame  and  fear. 
You  see  children  doing  things  ;  you  see  bees,  —  a  thou- 
sand things  that  are  full  of  analogies.  Ifneedbe,  put 
them  down  in  your  note-book.  But  keep  collecting  them 
all  the  while,  —  let  your  thighs  be  yellow. 


78 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


Q.  What  is  the  value  of  the  young  people's  prayer-meeting  ? 

Mr.  Beecher.  —  I  think  it  to  be  very  great.  It  is,  of 
course,  subject  to  all  those  infelicities  that  belong  to 
youth,  wliich  young  people  do  not'  believe  in,  but  old 
people  do.  It  is  subject  to  a  great  many  crudenesses, 
but  the  average  result  is  admirable.  It  brings  out  and 
gives  form  in  young  Christians  to  obscure  feelings.  It 
gives  them  courage  and  definiteness  of  commitment.  It 
teaches  them  how  to  use  their  implements  in  a  Chris- 
tian warfare  at  an  early  period.  It  knits  them  together, 
one  to  another.    In  a  thousand  ways  it  is  beneficial. 

Q.  What  would  you  say  about  the  long  prayer,  so  called,  before 
the  sermon  ?  Old  Dr.  Ely,  of  Munson,  used  to  pray  thirty  and 
forty  minutes.    Is  such  a  prayer  a  means  of  grace? 

Mr.  Beecher.  —  I  should  say  it  was.  A  man  brought 
up  under  such  circumstances,  who  was  not  patient, 
might  think  his  was  a  hopeless  case.  So  of  long  family 
prayers.  A  man  entering  a  house  after  the  prayer  was 
begun,  and  waiting  a  long  time,  asked  a  boy  how  long 
before  his  father  would  be  done.  The  boy  replied, 
"  Has  he  come  to  the  Jews  yet  ? "  "  No,"  was  the  an- 
swer. "Then  it  will  be  half  an  hour  more."  Of  course, 
such  stories  are  to  be  taken  with  allowance ;  they  are 
exaggerations.  But  exaggerations  are  in  rhetoric  what 
magnifying  a  flower  or  a  beetle  is  in  natural  history. 
We  cannot  see  them  so  well  unless  we  do  magnify 
them. 

Long  prayers  are,  as  a  general  rule,  nuisances.  It  is 
not  often  that  a  man  is  so  wound  up  in  feeling  that 
nature  compels  the  feeling  to  iterate  and  reiterate  it- 
self.   A  great  loss  or  bereavement,  if  it  does  not  put 


THE  PRAYEK-MEETING :  ITS  METHODS  AND  BENEFITS.  79 

one  to  silence,  leads  one  in  few  words  to  repeat,  and  re- 
peat, and  repeat.  I  have  seen  mothers  that,  like  the 
King  of  Israel,  walked  about  the  room  moaning,  "  My 
son !  my  son  !  my  son  !  my  son  !  "  a  hundred  times. 
Others  I  have  heard  say,  "  0  my  God !  0  my  God  !  0 
my  God  !  "  It  was  mute  prayer,  —  ejaculatory  prayer, 
runnino-  on  as  loim  as  the  wounded  heart  had  blood  to 
bleed.  But  for  men  in  cold  blood  to  come  into  a  meet- 
ing and,  without  any  great  feeling  in  themselves  or  any 
great  feeling  round  about  them,  to  open  up  Euphrates 
or  the  Mississippi,  —  it  is  abominable!  And  if  they 
should  do  it  a  few  times  in  my  meeting,  I  would  stop 
them,  or  I  would  cut  them  in  two. 

Q.  Do  you  not  think  the  objection  of  formality  can  be  brought 
against  asking  a  blessing  at  table  three  times  a  day  ?  What  can  you 
say  about  the  origin  and  desirableness  of  this  custom  1 

Mr.  Beecher.  —  Well,  I  can  say  that  there  is  no  ob- 
ligation in  the  custom,  and  its  formality  depends  entirely 
on  who  does  it  and  how  he  does  it.  I  dined  with  an 
English  clergyman  in  London,  and  we  had  got  about 
through  the  main  dinner  and  were  coming  to  the  fruit, 
—  Dr.  Eaymond  and  I  were  sitting  mi  opposite  sides 
of  the  table.  We  were  in  the  full  tide  of  conversa- 
tion, and  there  was  no  other  company  except  the  cler- 
gyman and  his  wife.  After  the  cloth  had  been  re- 
moved, —  I  was  in  the  midst  of  a  story,  I  think,  — 
they  both  rose,  and  I  heard,  "  Blb-lb-lb-lb ! "  and  they 
sat  down  again.  What,  sir  ? "  said  I.  I  found  out, 
afterwards,  that  he  had  said, Lord,  make  us  thankful 
for  these  blessings  !"  Well,  now,  I  consider  any  such 
thing  as  that  absurd,  —  worse  than  useless.    But  to 


80 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


see  the  children  gathered  at  the  table,  the  old  father, 
venerable  and  sincere,  and  the  raotlier,  reverend  and 
matronly,  sweet-hearted  as  a  saint,  the  children  all  in 
their  places,  hungry  but  yet  waiting ;  and  to  see  the 
old  man  bow  his  head  and  recognize  the  hand  of  God 
in  all  those  bounties,  in  a  short  and  appropriate  thanks- 
giving, —  I  don't  know  how  that  is  to  others,  but  it 
makes  my  bread  sweet.  I  like  it !  If  anybody  don't, 
he  is  perfectly  at  liberty  to  let  it  alone. 

Q.  Is  there  any  more  objection  to  that  kind  of  formalism  than 
there  is  to  the  shaking  of  bands  when  you  meet  1 

Mr.  Beecher.  —  Or  saying  good  bye  ;  which  is, God 
be  with  you."  Nobody  thinks  of  it,  but  it  expresses 
this,  —  good-will.  Even  my  English  friend,  I  suppose, 
regarded  his  returning  thanks  as  being  a  general  indi- 
cation that  he  had  yet  remaining  a  sense  of  the  Divine 
favor  in  his  dinner.  If  they  are  formal,  the  remedy 
does  not  seem  to  me  to  consist  in  abolishing  them,  but 
in  making  them  sincere. 


IV. 


THE   PRAYER-MEETING:    ITS    HELPS  AND 
HINDRANCES. 

SHALL  resume  the  subject  of  prayer-meet- 
ings under  the  general  head  of  its  Helps  and 
Hindrances.  Let  me  premise  that  you  may 
be  in  danger,  from  the  variety  of  statements 
and  from  the  incitements  to  the  ideal  of  the  power 
and  admirableness  of  the  prayer-meeting  which  I  con- 
tinually attempt  to  develop,  of  going  to  your  work  in  such 
a  state  of  mind  that  when  you  do  not  succeed  at  once,  or 
well,  you  will  be  thrown  back  in  discouragement. 

HARD  WORK  FOR  THE  MINISTER. 

There  are  two  very  important  and  very  difficult 
things  to  do,  namely,  to  maintain  a  lofty  ideal,  and  yet 
not  be  disgusted  with  ill  success  under  it ;  to  keep  on 
trying ;  not  to  content  yourself  with  poor  results,  but 
not  to  give  over  because  you  cannot  reach  the  mark 
which  you  have  in  your  mind.  This  will  be  particu- 
larly true  of  your  ministerial  life.  And  it  may  be 
some  comfort  to  you  by  and  by,  though  of  course  you 
will  not  feel  it  now,  to  know  that  the  most  difficult 

4*  F 


82 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


thing  that  you  will  have  to  do  in  your  ministry  is  to 
maintain  a  live  prayer-meeting.  It  is  about  the  hard- 
est work  you  will  ever  know.  It  will  tax  your  inge- 
nuity the  most ;  it  will  tax  yon,r  resources,  your  power 
over  men  and  over  yourself,  your  administrative  facul- 
ty. He  who  can  take  a  parish  and  develop  in  it  a  good 
prayer-meeting,  carry  it  on  through  years  and  still  have 
it  fruitful,  various,  spiritual,  —  he  is  a  general.  It  may 
be  that  he  will  not  excel  in  the  pulpit ;  the  prayer- 
meeting,  under  such  circumstances,  is  his  pulpit. 

If  you  go  into  your  work,  therefore,  witti  some  dis- 
couragement, ^remember  what  I  tell  you,  that  as  "  he 
that  bridleth  his  tongue  is  perfect," — that  is,  he  who 
has  grace  enough  to  do  that  has  grace  enough  to  do  any- 
thing, —  so  the  minister  who  knows  how  to  make  a  good 
prayer-meeting  is  perfect,  in  a  sense.  It  is  true  that 
there  will  be  many  times  when  the  meeting  will  develop 
itself  like  a  geyser,  with  vast  volume  and  stones  up- 
springing  and  filling  the  air  as  well  as  shaking  the 
earth  under  your  feet ;  but,  like  the  geyser,  it  will  gurgle 
back  again,  and  leave  mud  and  smoke  behind.  It  is 
not  difficult  in  times  of  revival,  in  times  when  the  whole 
community  are  developed  in  the  direction  of  moral  ex- 
citement, to  arouse  feeling;  it  is  difficult  then  to  keep 
it  down,  to  give  it  anything  like  moderation.  The 
meeting  then  takes  the  bits  into  its  mouth  and  runs 
away  with  you. 

But  when  there  is  no  general  excitement,  in  summer 
months,  in  winter  months  ;  when  there  is  no  feeling 
anywhere;  to  maintain  the  heart  of  the  church  which 
beats  in  the  prayer-meeting,  warm,  genial,  crescent, — 
in  this  is  labor,  I  may  say  in  this  is  genius,  if  you 
succeed. 


THE  PRAYER-MEETING  :  ITS  HELPS  AND  HINDRANCES.  83 
DIFFICULTY  OF  GATHERING  THE  PEOPLE. 

It  is  very  difficult,  in  some  places,  to  draw  the  people 
together  for  a  weekly  prayer-meeting.  There  is  that 
hindrance  to  overcome,  and  every  man  must  overcome 
it  in  the  particular  way  indicated  by  the  circumstances 
of  the  field  in  which  he  is  working,  —  for  it  is  impossi- 
ble to  give  a  general  rule.  Then,  where  the  population 
is  large,  there  is  an  indifference  to  contend  with.  I 
have  already  alluded  to  the  fact  that  prayer-meetings 
are  the  least  popular  of  all  meetings  in  the  church, 
whether  with  the  members  of  the  congregation  or  the 
members  of  the  church  itself.  And  it  is  for  a  very 
good  reason,  —  they  are  generally  the  driest  of  meetings. 
So  that  you  will  often  find,  when  you  come  into  a  large 
congregation,  that  the  weakest  place  in  it,  the  leanest 
part  of  the  service,  will  be  the  prayer-meeting.  You 
are  to  hold  yourself  in  the  main  responsible  for  this 
state  of  things,  after  you  are  well  established  in  your 
work. 

THE  FOLLY  OF  SCOLDING. 

Above  all  things,  do  not  scold  your  people  because 
they  do  not  attend.  I  do  not  believe  that  any  amount 
of  whips  or  of  skill  could  drive  a  swarm  of  bees  into  a 
field  where  there  were  not  a  dozen  flowers.  They  won't 
go.  And  to  get  them  into  a  field  where  there  are  a 
thousand  flowers,  there  is  no  need  of  whips  or  of  driv- 
ing. Xow,  it  is  for  you  to  kindle  such  an  interest 
there  as  will  draw  men.  Generally,  in  your  ministry, 
do  as  Paul  did  ;  encourage,  praise,  never  blame  until 
you  have  with  consummate  enginery  prepared  the  way 


84 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


to  blame.  When  Paul  wished  to  rebuke  people,  he  first 
stated  all  the  good  he  knew  about  them,  and  all  the 
pleasant  things  he  had  heard  about  them,  and  how  near 
and  dear  they  were  to  him.  "  Nevertheless,  brethren," 
he  would  say,  I  have  somewhat  —  "  and  then  comes 
in  the  other  thing  !  In  general,  to  scold  your  people 
because  they  do  not  come  to  church  on  Sunday  is  to 
hit  those  that  do  come  and  miss  those  that  do  not.  To 
scold  or  to  blame  your  people  in  any  way  because  tliey 
do  not  come  to  meeting,  or  because  they  have  no  feeling, 
is  not  wise.  It  is  your  business  to  produce  the  feeling 
that  will  make  their  attendance  voluntary  and  cheerful, 
that  will  make  it  impossible  for  them  to  keep  away. 

HOW  TO  START  PRAYER-MEETINGS. 

In  the  beginning  of  a  prayer-meeting  of  this  kind, 
there  are  both  physical  and  moral  elements  that  enter 
into  it.  I  have  here  a  question  as  to  the  best  way  to 
start  a  prayer-meeting  in  a  place  where  there  is  none. 
Well,  the  wa}^  to  start  a  prayer-meeting  is  the  way  you 
would  start  a. fire.  If  it  is  an  old  church,  it  is  like  a  fire- 
place where  there  has  been  something  raked  up  over- 
night ;  in  the  morning,  there  is  not  a  coal  there  as  big  as 
a  thimble.  But  you  get  together  the  few  that  there  are. 
You  never  think  of  bringing  in  a  whole  armful  of  wood 
and  whanging  it  all  down  into  the  embers.  You  lay 
the  wood  aside,  selecting  the  driest  pieces  you  can  find, 
and  whittle  up  shavings ;  and,  having  gathered  the  few 
littie  coals,  you  put  a  few  shavings  upon  them  ;  then  you 
blow  the  little  pile  gently  at  first,  and  up  springs  a  light 
blaze.  Then  you  lay  on  a  few  more  shavings,  dealing 
with  it  all  the  time  as  carefully  and  tenderly  as  a  mother 


THE  PKAYER-MEETiNG  :  ITS  HELPS  AND  HINDRANCES.  '  85 

does  with  a  baby ;  then,  by  and  by,  you  put  on  a  dry 
.tick,  picking  out  the  fittest  and  the  best,  and  soon  the 
flame  will  get  power ;  and  at  last,  when  the  whole  fire 
is  kindled,  you  can  put  on  what  you  please,  green  wood 
or  dry,  it  will  consume  the  strongest  and  toughest 
materials. 

In  the  beginning,  remember  that  the  prayer-meeting 
turns  on  this  fact :  it  is  the  development  of  the  social 
element  in  the  religious  direction.  Suppose,  in  an  old 
church,  in  a  great  state  of  deadness,  one  or  two  brethren 
feel  that  they  cannot  live  so,  and  there  are  two  ways 
proposed.  One  is,  to  get  the  minister  to  preach  a  big 
sermon  on  that  subject,  and  then  to  ring  the  bell,  and 
call  everybody  to  come  down  into  the  conference-room 
or  lecture-room,  and  try  to  have  a  prayer-meeting. 
That  will  fail,  nine  times  in  ten.  Suppose,  instead  of 
that,  you  look  around  to  find  some  one  who  feels  as 
you  feel.  Ask  him  to  come  to  your  house  for  prayer. 
Both  of  you  look  around  for  a  third  who  shall  be  con- 
genial, susceptible,  warm.  Get  three  together.  Three 
are  very  powerful  on  the  fourth,  and  four  on  the  fifth. 
When  you  have  got  a  praying  center  that  begins  to 
whirl  with  some  degree  of  power,  it  will  suck  in  ma- 
terials just  as  fast  as  you  ought  to  have  them  come. 
Begin  at  the  bottom,  begin  low,  begin  and  work  the 
principle  of  affiliation,  —  of  the  moral  affinities.  Work 
it  patiently,  and  in  faith  that  there  is  a  principle  there, 
and  you  will  succeed.  And  you  will  not  be  apt  to 
succeed  in  any  other  way. 

So,  then,  the  first  step  in  a  prayer-meeting  where  the 
interest  has  died  out  is  to  go  back  to  the  very  first 
elements ;  make  it  perfectly  simple,  perfectly  natural, 


86 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


be  yourself  fervent ;  and  fervency  creates  fervor,  as 
sparks  lead  to  sparks. 

POVERTY  OF  MATERIAL. 

Another  of  the  hindrances  which  we  find  in  our 
prayer-meetings  arises  from  the  poverty  of  the  ma- 
terial which  is  developed  in  them.  My  observation 
teaches  me  that  there  are  very  few  men  who  think 
enough  to  have  anything  to  spare  for  their  neighbors. 
In  books,  meditation  abounds.  There  is  a  good  deal 
of  talk  about  it,  but  I  have  never  seen  much  of  it  that 
people  had  to  hand  out  for  small  change  on  occasions. 
There  is  a  great  deal  of  philosophy  in  the  world,  but 
it  expends  itself  mostly  and  is  absorbed  in  practical 
things.  And  when  you  take  men  who  have  always 
been  accustomed  to  work  out  all  that  they  have  in 
them  toward  the  concrete,  toward  visible  things,  and 
bring  them  together  in  a  meeting,  and  expect  them  to 
rise  up  in  their  places  and  develop  that  w^hich  their 
whole  life  has  been  a  training  not  to  develop  (namely, 
abstract  meditation  or  anything  of  that  kind),  you  will 
find  very  soon,  that,  whether  it  be  devotion  or  medi- 
tation, there  is  but  very  little  of  it  grown,  and  much 
less  brought  to  market. 

So,  then,  you  will  find  a  great  poverty  in  the  materials 
which  you  w^ork.  There  will  be  good  Christian  men 
and  women,  and  yet  it  will  be  very  hard  to  make  much 
out  of  them  in  a  prayer-meeting.  Eemember  this ; 
don't  let  your  expectations  be  too  high.  Keep  your 
expectations  down  and  your  will  up.  Determine  that 
you  will  have  meetings,  first  or  last,  if  it  takes  years. 
Don't  be  impatient  on  the  way.    You  are  working  at 


THE  PRAYER-MEETING  :  ITS  HELPS  AND  HINDRANCES.  87 

tough  material.  You  are  doing  the  best  work  that  can 
be  done,  but  it  is  necessarily  low.  Then,  the  worst  of 
all  difficulties  is  not  that  people  are  barren ;  it  is  that 
they  are  blind,  and  naked,  and  sick,  and  do  not  know  it. 

NEED  OF  WISE  LEADERSHIP. 

Prayer-meetings  usually  fall  into  the  hands  of  a  few 
hackneyed  leaders,  if  the  pastor  is  not  himself  present. 
Now,  deacons  and  elders  may  be  excellent  men  as 
elders  and  as  deacons,  and  yet  not  be  gifted  either  in 
spiritual  fervor  for  devotional  purposes,  or  in  the  tact 
that  is  requisite  to  lead  a  meeting.  I  have  seen 
deacon-smothered  churches  and  elder-smothered  prayer- 
meetings,  any  number  of  them,  where  men  went  into 
the  leadership  of  the  meeting  who  made  everybody 
afraid.  The  young  people  did  n't  dare  to  speak,  nobody 
dared  to  speak.  There  was  a  sort  of  ''order''  in  the 
meeting.  To  be  sure,  worship  is  something,  edification 
is  something,  freedom  is  something,  but  oh  "  Order ! 
order  !  order  !  Let  everything  be  doiie  decently  and  in 
order."  And  so  they  were  as  orderly  as  a  pyramid  of 
mummies. 

STALE  SPEAKERS  AND  SPEECHES. 

Then,  too,  you  have  the  hackneyed  speeches  and 
hackneyed  prayers.  There  is  one  man  in  every  prayer- 
meeting  who  has  to  get  up  and  confess  that  he  don't 
live  up  to  his  privileges  and  to  his  light,  and  he  tells 
you  that  every  week,  or  it  may  be  every  month, 
through  the  whole  year.  He  never  gets  a  great  way 
beyond  that.  There  is  another  man  who  is  always 
confessing  his  sins,  and  confessing  and  confessing,  in  a 


88 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


general  way,  —  never  the  special  sins  that  his  neighbors 
see  in  him,  but  always  the  doctrine  of  sin,  and  not  the 
practice.  So  a  few  men  of  this  kind  run  riglit  around 
in  that  same  barren  path^  the  regulation  address  and 
remarks. 

Worst  of  all,  come  the  exhorters,  or  men  who  are 
always  urging  folks  up  to  their  duty.  This  I  shall 
speak  about  a  little  farther  on.  But  these  hackneyed 
speakers  in  prayer-meetings  take  the  life  out  of  them. 
Frequently  they  are  the  best  men  in  the  community  in 
other  respects,  but  they  are  not  adapted  to  that  place. 
Young  men,  how  are  you  going  to  get  along  with  these 
old  gray-heads  ?  Well,  you  cannot  at  first ;  but  there 
is  a  good  deal  that  can  be  done  by  good  sense  and 
patience,  and  real  kind,  humble  feeling.  Many  of  these 
men  have  in  them  better  springs  than  have  yet  been 
tapped.  There  are  many  of  them  that  can  do  a  great 
deal  better  than  they  think  they  can,  and  you  can  help 
a  good  deal  out  of  them.  They  are  to  be  revered,  if 
they  are  venerable ;  they  are  to  be  respected  for  their 
work,  if  they  have  been  useful ;  they  are  to  be  treated 
as  fathers,  and  not  with  contempt.  They  are  to  be 
treated,  especially  by  a  young  pastor,  with  the  greatest 
affection  and  kindness.  Nevertheless,  it  is  always 
fair  to  have  a  design  on  a  man  for  his  own  good ;  and 
it  is  always  fair  for  a  pastor,  seeing  these  men  in  the 
way,  to  do  two  things,  —  first,  to  attempt  to  get  more 
out  of  them,  to  talk  with  them,  to  lead  their  thoughts 
to  other  things,  to  get  them  to  express  other  things  when 
they  speak,  and  to  shorten  their  prayers  when  they 
pray ;  secondly,  to  develop  another  center.  Bring  in 
uew  material ;  get  hold  of  the  young,  and  put  new  life, 


THE  PRAYER-MEETING  :  ITS  HELPS  AND  HINDRANCES.  89 

new  blood,  into  the  meeting.  This  is  a  kind  of  co- 
operative antagonism.  It  is  taking  the  meeting 
gradually  out  of  the  hands  of  those  who  have  ridden 
it  to  death,  and  putting  it  into  the  hands  of  those 
that  have  come  up  under  better  auspices.  The  change 
will  be  gradual,  little  by  little.  An  old  church  is  very 
much  like  an  old  building.  You  have  the  quarrels, 
which  may  be  represented  by  the  rats  and  mice  in  the 
walls.  You  have  all  the  difficulties,  which  are  the 
leaks,  the  weather-boarding  and  shingles  off  here  and 
there.  You  have  the  smoky  chimneys,  the  squeaking 
doors,  the  ill-adjusted  steps,  —  a  hundred  things  that 
are  to  be  remedied.  You  begin  to  patch  in  here  and 
there,  —  to  revamp ;  working  on  the  house  little  by 
little,  till,  by  and  by,  you  get  into  a  state  that  is  whole- 
some and  comfortable  again.  An  old  church  has  to  be 
worked  very  much  in  this  way.  I  have  sometimes 
thought  it  would  not  be  bad  to  disband  old  churches. 
Dr.  Payson  used  to  say  that  if  he  could  liave  his  own 
way  he  would  scatter  his  church  entirely ;  and  then  all 
that  wanted  to  come  back  he  would  n't  take  in,  and  all 
that  did  n't  want  to  come  back  he  would  draw  to- 
gether; indicating  that  the  forward  ones  were  the 
spiritually  conceited,  and  that  the  retiring  ones  were 
the  modest  and  the  humble.  And  although  this  is,  of 
course,  an  extravagance,  it  marks  a  thought. 

The  difficulty  of  combating  in  churches  the  old  heredi- 
tary troubles,  coming  out  in  meetings  and  other  social 
relations,  oftentimes  occupies  the  mind  of  the  young 
pastor  fully  as  much  as  all  the  rest  of  his  work  put 
together.  Old  churches  will  go  down  from  generation 
to  generation  and  have  something  very  noble,  even 


90 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


grand,  in  them ;  and,  except  in  special  cases,  you  are  not 
to  think  of  getting  rid  of  the  difficulties  as  you  might 
burn  a  barn  to  get  rid  of  the  rats.  But  you  have  got  a 
work  of  this  kind  to  do,  when  you  take  a  church,  tliat 
will  require  your  patience,  your  assiduity,  your  tact, 
your  knowledge  of  human  nature,  your  grace,  the  con- 
trol of  your  own  temper,  the  richness  and  depth  of 
your  spiritual  feelings. 

THE  MINISTER  TO  TRAIN  HIMSELF. 

There  is  another  element  of  which  I  would  speak,  — 
the  estimate  which  you  yourself,  and  those  of  your 
members  who  are  under  your  influence,  put  upon  tlie 
prayer-meeting.  If  you  prepare  your  sermon  labori- 
ously, if  you  make  Sunday  your  idol,  and  spend  all  your 
available  force  in  that  direction,  and  count  your  little 
social  meetings  during  the  week  as  "  only  prayer-meet- 
ings, —  nothing  to  do  to-day  but  my  prayer-meeting,"  — 
if  you  put  that  kind  of  emphasis  on  it,  you  certainly  will 
not  make  much  out  of  it.  Although  training  for  the 
pulpit  is  one  thing,  and  training  for  the  prayer-meeting 
is  another,  I  think  that  the  man  who  is  to  excel  in 
prayer-meetings  must  train  more  for  them,  though  dif- 
ferently, than  for  the  pulpit.  I  should  be  very  sorry 
to  be  forced  into  the  conduct  of  a  prayer-meeting  with- 
out having  anticipated  it  during  the  day ;  not  so  much 
that  I  might  think  what  I  was  going  to  say,  but,  as  it 
were,  to  heat  up  my  nature,  to  get  into  a  higher  mood, 
to  rise  into  a  thought  more  of  the  Infinite ;  to  get  some 
such  relation  to  men  as  I  think  God  has,  of  sympathy, 
pity,  tenderness,  and  sweetness ;  to  get  my  heart  all 
right,  so  that  everything  in  me  should  work  sympatheti- 


THE  PRAYER-MKETING  :  ITS  HELPS  AND  HINDRANCES.  91 

cally  toward  certain  devotional  ends.  Get  yourself 
trained. 

Never,  therefore,  regret  your  prayer-meetings;  the 
harder  they  are,  the  more  you  need  to  be  strong  in 
them,  the  more  you  need  to  feel  responsible  for  their 
right  conduct,  to  have  fuU-heartedness  in  going  into 
them.  Train  for  them,  then ;  not  so  much  by  prepar- 
ing the  way  for  what  you  shall  say, —  though  that  at 
times  may  be  wise  and  useful,  —  as  by  having  the 
right  moral  forces,  the  right  sympathies,  in  yourself 

LET  EVERY  MEETING  TAKE  ITS  OWN  SHAPE. 

In  conducting  prayer-meetings,  I  have  noticed  one 
mistake  which  is  constantly  and  naturally  made,  and 
that  is,  when  you  have  had  one  good  one,  to  have  the 
next  a  very  poor  one.  Just  as  young  ministers,  when 
they  have  preached  one  good  sermon,  think,  "  There, 
now  I  will  preach  another  next  Sunday  that  will  just 
be  the  mate  to  this."  And  when  on  the  next  Sun- 
day they  come  to  preach  it,  it  is  stale,  it  "  all  flats  out " 
in  their  hands,  and  they  do  not  know  what  the  difficulty 
is.  My  father  once  said  to  me,  "  Henry,  never  try  to 
run  a  race  with  yourself"  If  you  have  preached  a 
good  sermon,  do  not  try  to  preach  another  just  like  it ; 
do  not  try  to  fill  up  the  same  measure  that  you  have 
filled.  The  probability  is,  that  while  there  may  have 
been  much  labor  and  preparation  for  that  good  sermon, 
there  was  also  much  of  that  volunteer  force,  much  of 
that  native,  that  unexpected  help,  which  you  cannot 
get  again  by  mere  volition.  Time  and  again  I  have 
seen  a  prayer-meeting  that  rose  and  culminated,  full 
of  sweetness,  of  freshness,  •  of  Divine  spirit,  full  of 


92 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHlNC. 


the  best  fruit  of  the  Spirit  in  man.  Everybody  went 
away  edified,  happy,  and  joyful.  And  when  they  came 
together  the  next  time,  they  came  saying,  Now  let  us 
have  just  such  another."  There  never  was  and  never 
will  be  just  such  another.  You  may  turn  a  kaleido- 
scope a  million  times,  and  the  rays  never  will  fall  twice 
alike.  And  so  meetings,  since  they  spring  not  from 
prescribed  forms  and  definite  rules,  but  are  the  unfold- 
ing of  the  voluntary  conditions  of  feeling  in  hundreds 
of  persons,  can  never  be  just  alike. 

Therefore,  in  the  conduct  of  a  prayer-meeting,  while 
you  may  have  some  theme  or  topic,  while  you  may 
have  in  your  mind  some  idea  how  it  shall  shape  itself 
and  run,  always  be  vigilant  to  see  if  there  is  not  a 
germ  in  the  meeting  itself,  and  be  sagacious  to  discern 
and  catch  it.  Frequently  you  will  go  thinking,  I  will 
spend  to-night  on  the  subject  of  prayer,"  and  you  make 
some  attempt  on  that  subject.  But  some  one  will  get 
up  and  bring  in  another  theme,  and  he  will  feel  it  so 
much  that  you  will  find  everybody  else  feels  it.  Seize 
that ;  do  not  go  back  to  the  old  topic,  you  have  got  the 
real  meeting  there.  And  with  a  little  nourishing,  blow- 
ing, catching  all  the  sparks  and  bringing  them  together, 
you  will  very  soon  have  a  meeting  that  opens  up  in 
nobleness  and  beauty.  Let  every  meeting  develop  the 
vitality  that  is  in  its  own  core ;  let  it  unfold  its  own 
germ.  There  is  a  germ,  if  men  only  know  how  to  de- 
velop it. 

FEELING  CANNOT  BE  FORCED. 

Let  me  say  a  word  on  the  subject  of  attempting  to 
force  feeling.    It  is  true  that  feeling  begets  feeling  by 


THE  PRAYER-MEETING  :  ITS  HELPS  AND  HINDRANCES.  93 


Ryiiipathy,  but  it  is  also  true  that  persons  may  be  so 
much  beyond  their  neighbors  in  any  given  direction  of 
feehng  that  the  chasm  between  them  cannot  be  filled 
up.    Then,  feeling  acts  just  the  other  way. 

I  recall  scenes  in  the  West.  I  recollect  being  at  a 
city  on  the  Ohio  Kiver,  and  a  brother  who  had  been 
laboring  for  nearly  four  weeks  in  camp-meeting  revivals 
was  sent  over  in  advance  of  Synod,  which  was  to 
meet  there,  to  prepare  the  church  for  it.  He  went 
with  all  the  nervous  fervor  that  there  was  in  the  labor 
he  liad  just  been  going  througli,  and  commenced  pour- 
ing himself  out  upon  the  church,  bringing  them  to- 
gether, telling  them  of  their  dead  condition,  setting 
their  sins  in  order  before  them.  But  he  was  in  sucli 
a  state  of  excitement,  so  far  above  them,  that  nobody 
caught  the  spirit.  They  rather  took  his  exhortations 
as  tlie  negro  slaves  across  the  river  in  Kentucky  took 
kicks,  —  they  only  crouched  and  looked  sullen,  and 
w^ent  on.  And  when  Synod  came  together,  that  was 
the  state  of  the  church.  They  had  been  on  the  an\'il, 
and  with  small  hammer  and  trip-hammer  they  had 
been  pounded  unmercifully. 

I  recall  very  w^ell  one  Sunday  night.  Brother  Snead 
had  had  the  general  care  of  the  meetings,  and  I  was 
appointed  to  preach  on  Sunday  evening.  That  was  a 
sermon  born  out  of  the  extremity  of  desire.  I  had 
preached  several  times,  and  with  no  special  effect ;  but 
there  was  one  person  whose  conversion  had  lingered, 
and  for  w^hom  my  whole  soul  had  gone  out.  And  in 
the  strong  desire  that  I  had,  I  struck  out  a  plain  and 
quiet  sermon  on  the  parable  of  the  Prodigal  Son.  I 
went  with  that  sermon  into  the  pulpit  on  that  Sunday 


94 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


night,  and  began  preaching  it.  It  was  of  the  love  of 
God,  and  the  way  in  which  he  looked  upon  sinners,  — 
his  yearning.  And,  without  any  attempt  to  produce 
feeling,  I  drew  picture  after  picUire  and  scene  after 
scene,  until  about  the  middle  of  the  sermon  the  audience 
broke  down,  and  it  was  like  a  rain  on  the  mountains. 
It  was  the  beginning  of  a  great  and  glorious  revival  of 
religion  there.  When  I  came  out  of  the  pulpit,  Brother 
Snead  said,  ''My  dear  brother,  you  have  given  them 
sugar  when  you  ought  to  have  given  them  tartar ! " 

Now,  this  attempting  to  enforce  the  strong  feeling  of 
conviction  and  dread  of  the  wrath  to  come  might  have 
been  wise  under  some  circumstances  ;  but  here  was  a 
case  in  which  it  was  manifestly  unwise,  and  was  defeat- 
ing itself,  and  where  a  much  lower  tone  of  feeling 
stood  connected  with  the  production  of  that  which 
was  needed.  As  an  illustration,  take  the  old-fashioned 
way  of  lighting  a  candle.  If  you  have  a  coal  of  fire 
and  blow  gently,  there  will  always  come  a  little  flame 
on  the  coal,  and  you  can  light  your  candle  with 
it;  but  if  a  man  should  take  the  coal  and  give  a 
sudden  and  violent  puff,  he  would  blow  out  the  light 
of  the  coal  and  the  candle  too.  Gentle  feeling  will 
often  stand  more  nearly  connected  with  the  inception 
of  deep  emotion  than  more  intense  and  overpowering 
agitation  will. 

Another  thing :  You  can  never  make  people  feel  by 
scolding  them  because  they  don't  feel.  You  can  never 
move  anybody  by  saying,  "Feel!"  Feeling  is  just 
as  much  a  product  of  cause  as  anything  else  in  the 
world.  I  could  sit  down  before  a  piano  and  say,  "  A, 
come  forth  "  ;  and  it  won't.    But  if  I  put  my  finger  on 


THE  PlIAYER-MEETING  :  ITS  HELPS  AND  HINDRANCES.  95 

the  key  it  will,  and  that  is  the  only  way  to  make  it. 
The  human  soul  is  like  a  harp ;  one  has  but  to  put  his 
hand  to  a  chord  and  it  will  vibrate  to  his  touch,  accord- 
ing as  he  knows  how.  It  is  the  knowing  how  that  you 
are  to  acquire.  It  is  the  very  business  that  you  are 
going  out  into  the  world  for;  it  is  to  understand  human 
nature  so  that  you  can  touch  the  chords  of  feeling. 

HOW  FEELING  IS  DEVELOPED. 

In  general,  feeling  results  from  the  presentation  of 
some  fact  or  truth  that  has  a  relation  to  the  particular 
feeling  you  wish  to  produce.  If  I  w^anted  to  make 
you  weep,  I  would  not  tell  you  an  amusing  story ;  I 
would,  if  I  wanted  to  make  you  laugh,  and  that  story 
Imd  a  relation  to  laughing.  If  I  wished  to  make  you 
weep,  I  would  tell  you  some  pathetic  incident,  the 
truth  embodied  in  which  had  some  sympathetic  rela- 
tion to  feeling.  Charge  yourself  with  this :  "  If  these 
people  are  to  feel,  I,  as  the  minister  of  the  Holy 
Ghost,  am  to  be  the  cause  of  it  by  applying  to  their 
minds  such  treatment,  such  thoughts,  as  stand  con- 
nected with  the  production  of  feeling."  If  they  do  not 
feel,  it  is  because  you  do  not  play  well.  If  they  do 
feel,  it  is  because  you  are  a  master  of  your  business,  — 
quoad  hoc. 

USELESSNESS  OF  MERE  EXHORTATION. 

So,  then,  here  is  where  you  come  to  the  folly  of  ex- 
hortation, —  men  exhorting  each  other  day  after  day, 
continually,  to  "feeling,"  to  "duty,"  without  present- 
ing any  new  expression,  without  filling  the  mind  or  the 
imagination,  without  laying  in  fuel  which  is  to  kindle 


96 


LECTURES  ON  I*REACHtNa. 


into  light  and  warmth.  Mere  exhortation  is  as  if  a 
man  should  go  down  the  street  saying,  "  0  money, 
money,  money,  come  to  me,  come  to  me  ! "  No,  it  will 
not  come  to  him  thus.  Or  as  if  a  man  should  oo  to 
his  studies  and  invoke  mathematics ;  that  does  not 
come  by  invocation.  As  you  gain  other  things  hy 
playing  the  keys  that  produce  the  desired  effects,  so 
you  must  do  with  every  step  that  you  gain  in  a  meeting. 
Men  are  so  many  instruments,  and  you  are  a  skillful 
player ;  and  you  will  have  success  just  as  the  Spirit  of 
God  dwelling  in  you  kindles  your  soul  to  that  power, 
to  that  perception  of  truth,  to  that  sympathy  with  it, 
to  that  knowledge  of  men  ;  for  the  sense  of  God  brings 
the  sense  of  human  nature.  They  both  lie  in  the  same 
plane,  and  he  that  has  one  will  be  very  apt  to  have  the 
other.  They  train  together.  And  if  you  have  the 
power  of  producing  the  sympathetic  feeling,  it  will  be 
simply  by  applying  the  known  causes  of  that  effect. 
Nothing  is  so  barren,  nothing  so  unprofitable,  as  iiryimj 
men  to  feel,  when  the  shorter  way  is  to  make  them  feel. 

FLIES  IN  THE  OINTMENT. 

Among  the  hindrances,  I  must  mention  the  moths 
and  millers  that  will  be  sure  to  fly  around  your  candle 
just  as  soon  as  you  have  it  lighted.  It  is  almost  im- 
possible that  a  meeting  should  have  any  life  or  power 
in  it,  or  any  degree  of  freedom,  without  producing 
some  very  disagreeable  results.  I  have  had  my  cross 
to  bear  in  this  matter.  It  seemed  as  though  I  never 
was  to  be  left  without  a  thorn  in  tlie  flesh,  without 
somebody  to  disturb  almost  every  prayer-meeting.  Well, 
I  don't  know  why  a  prayer-meeting  should  be  an  excep- 


The  pkayer-meeting  :  Its  helps  and  hindrances.  97 


tion  to  every  other  part  of  life.  Perfection  does  n't  belong 
here.  Everything  is  mixed.  Everything  sweet  has  its 
bitter,  every  rose  its  thorn,  and  every  prayer- meeting  its 
"  bummer."  And  you  must  make  up  your  mind  to  it. 
You  must  not  be  too  fastidious,  or  too  easily  thrown  off 
your  guard.  To  give  you  a  biographical  sketch  of  all  the 
illustrious  persons  who  have  spoiled  prayer-meetings  for 
me  would  keep  you  here  till  midnight.  I  have  one  now 
in  my  mind  who  used  occasionally  to  utter  as  brilliant  and 
apposite  sentences  as  I  ever  heard,  and  yet  I  never  heard 
him  make  an  address  in  the  world  that  he  did  not  mar 
and  injure  the  meeting.  It  was  the  occasional  flash  that 
was  good,  but  the  ordinary  statements  that  he  made 
were  inconceivably  bad.  I  recollect  once  a  meeting 
seemed  almost  spoiled,  —  if  anything  could  spoil  it ;  a 
good  meeting  you  never  can  spoil,  when  it  has  real 
heart  and  stamina  to  it.  But  I  recollect  one  of  my  sons 
of  vexation,  when  a  meeting  had  turned  on  the  love  of 
Christ,  and  especially  the  sympathy  of  Christ  with 
those  that  are  feeble  and  strivin^x  to  come  to  a  higher 
life  under  manifold  difficulties,  and  upon  the  great  con- 
solation and  encouragement  there  is  in  •  persevering,  in 
the  knowledge  that  the  whole  atmosphere  above  you  is 
sympathetic  in  Christ  Jesus.  Just  at  the  end,  after  I 
had  taken  my  hymn-book  to  give  out  the  closing  hymn, 
thinking  1  had  got  that  meeting  safe  out  of  the  reach  of 
everybody,  —  this  man  gets  up  and  says,  "  Why,  breth- 
ren," —  he  had  very  red  hair,  —  ''I  sometimes  feel  that 
I  could  put  even  my  red  head  in  Jesus'  bosom  !"  Well, 
what  could  you  do  ?  Nobody  after  that  could  take  up 
the  thread  of  discourse,  and  you  could  not  go  back  and 
mold  the  meeting  over  again,  —  what  could  you  do  1 

VOL.  II.  5  G 


98 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


By  the  grace  of  God,  nothing ;  a  very  patient,  a  very 
meek  nothing. 

It  is  a  good  idea,  therefore,  to  build  your  meetings 
out  of  such  manful  stuff,  and  to  have  such  a  spirit  of 
courage  inspired  in  your  people  that  they  won't  be 
thrown  off  their  guard  by  infelicities  of  this  kind ;  to 
have  your  meetings  so  tough  that  they  won't  be  hurt  by 
any  such  little  infliction  as  that.  I  had  an  old  white- 
headed  man,  —  I  never  knew  his  name,  nor  cared  to, 
—  but  whenever  there  was  a  little  fervor  he  came  in. 
I  remember  a  horse  which  my  father  bought,  and 
which  ran  away  the  first  day  he  was  put  in  the  chaise. 
The  next  day  he  was  sold  to  a  stage-company,  and  I 
rode  behind  him  down  to  Bethlehem  the  first  time  he 
was  put  on  the  wheel.  He  carried  the  whole  stage 
that  day ;  he  carried  it  out  of  the  road  once  in  a  while, 
and  from  one  side  to  the  other,  with  such  a  burst  that 
it  seemed  as  though  he  would  sweep  everything  before 
him.  He  carried  the  stage  all  the  way  down.  This 
white-haired  old  man  was  like  that  horse ;  he  would 
take  the  meeting  in  his  teeth,  and  rush  away  with  it  in 
this  direction  and  in  that  direction,  and  you  never  knew 
where  you  were !  He  had  fervor,  and  his  prayers  had  a 
perfect  Gulf  Stream  in  them  both  for  speed  and  heat. 
For  a  few  meetin^fs  I  thou<xht  I  had  o^ot  a  o^reat  aux- 
iliary ;  but,  after  a  few  more,  I  found  that  I  had  a  shark 
in  the  net,  and  that  it  was  anything  but  edifying. 

I  had  another  of  these  men  to  whom  is  committed 
the  cultivation  of  the  perseverance  of  the  saints ;  he 
would  talk  half  an  hour,  and  not  get  out  a  dozen  sen- 
tences. He  would  get  up  and  exhort  young  men  in  a 
most  painfully  slow  manner,  and  you  can  imagine  the 


THE  PRAYER-MEETING  :  ITS  HELPS  AND  HINDRANCES.  99 

precious  time  of  the  meeting  going.  Then  I  had  another 
man  who  used  to  assume  a  most  oratorical  position,  and, 
introducing  a  little  narrative,  have  everybody  on  the  tip- 
toe of  expectation.  But  it  all  went  out  in  puff ;  there  was 
nothing  of  it,  no  nub  to  it,  no  anything.  He  would  do 
that  at  almost  every  meeting,  and  sit  down  with  an  air, 
and  wipe  his  mouth,  as  if  he  had  been  Demosthenes. 

Now,  what  are  you  going  to  do  with  such  men  ? 
You  must  do  exactly  as  we  boys  used  to  do  when 
we  were  fishing  off  Cragie's  Bridge  in  Boston.  We 
could  n't  help  it,  —  in  spite  of  everything  we  could 
do,  the  little  perch  would  steal  the  bait,  and  the  big 
fish  would  n't  get  a  chance  at  the  hook.  We  fished 
through  thick  and  thin ;  we  renewed  the  bait  and  kept 
fishing,  and  caught  what  big  ones  we  could,  and  let  the 
little  perch  bite.  You  must  do  the  same,  in  the  main. 
You  must  bear  it ;  but  you  must  have  your  meeting 
tempered  to  survive  such  things. 

DO  NOT  BE  FASTIDIOUS. 

This  I  may  say  also  in  regard  to  another  point,  — 
fastidiousness  with  respect  to  the  form  of  that  which 
is  said  by  men  who  have  good  sense  and  good  feeling  at 
the  bottom,  but  not  the  art  of  polite  delivery.  Peo- 
ple may  say,  "  Oh,  I  wish  nobody  would  speak  but  the 
pastor ;  there  is  some  comfort  in  hearing  him  speak ; 
but  w^hen  Mr.  So-and-so  gets  up,  what  he  says  is  well 
enouc^h,  but,  dear  me  !  what  orrammar  !"  Now,  fastidi- 
ousness  is  one  of  the  devil's  imps  that  he  sends  to 
preside  in  prayer-meetings.  The  moment  your  gram- 
mar and  your  literature  are  a  stronger  relish  to  you 
than  the  substance  of  the  thought  or  the  feeling  of  an 


100 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


honest  man,  tliat  very  moment  there  is  mischief  in 
the  room  ;  you  will  shut  off  the  unpracticed.  Brethren, 
a  man  may  get  up,  and  what  he  says  may  be  said  in 
the  most  oratorical  manner,  and  may  come  home  to 
your  heart  and  imagination,  and  comfort  you,  and  yet 
it  will  not  do  the  church  one  half  so  much  good  as 
to  hear  a  new  man  that  never  spoke,  a  young  man, 
wlio  shakes  on  his  feet,  to  whom  it  is  a  great  effort  to 
rise,  and  who  makes  a  stammering  speech,  in  which, 
however,  appears  his  adhesion  to  Christ,  or  his  love  for 
the  cause,  or  some  feature  in  his  history.  The  speaking 
of  tliat  new  man,  who  speaks  so  poorly,  is  worth  more 
to  the  church  than  the  finest  effort  ever  made  by  an 
old  member.  You  have  found  another  man,  you  have 
got  some  more  material.  Tt  is  more  important  to  rescue 
a  man  from  outside,  and  bring  him  in,  and  build  him 
up  in  the  church,  than  it  is  to  have  gifts  exercised  by 
those  that  are  already  in  it.  You  are  sure  of  them ; 
tliey  are  safe.  But  the  church  grows  by  the  addition 
of  just  such  new  men. 

THE  NEED  OF  CATHOLICITY. 

Prayer-meetings,  too,  are  apt  to  run  in  particular 
lines.  You  must  make  them  catholic  and  broad.  No 
prayer-meeting  is  truly  Christian  in  the  largest  sense, 
that  is  not  broad  enough  to  have  any  theme  discussed 
or  alluded  to  in  it,  which,  under  God's  providence, 
exercises  the  hearts  of  any  of  his  people.  There  are 
persons  that  come  to  my  prayer-meeting  to  talk  per- 
fectionism. I  believe  in  it,  though  T  think  it  is  ad- 
journed until  after  the  present  sphere.  But  I  am 
never  afraid  that  my  folks  are  going  to  get  too  perfect. 


THE  PRAYER-MEETING  :  ITS  HELPS  AND  HINDRANCES.  101 

There  are  some  thoughts  lying  in  that  direction  that 
are  worthy  of  our  hearing ;  for,  if  that  subject  does  not 
rest  on  a  philosophical  basis,  still  it  is  on  a  side  where 
we  certainly  need  to  hear  much.  I  let  them  talk.  I 
encourage  them  to  come.  There  are  some  persons  who 
do  not  believe  in  falling  from  grace  ;  but  if  there  is 
a  brother  who  does,  and  who  thinks  he  has  fallen 
from  grace,  and  wants  to  talk  about  it,  I  just  let  him 
bring  it  out.  If  there  is  any  joy,  any  sorrow,  any 
doubt  or  any  scepticism  ;  if  there  is  any  disbelieving 
what  you  said  last  Sunday  in  our  sermon ;  if  there 
is  any  disposition,  not  combative,  but  really  manly 
and  kind,  to  traverse  any  of  your  positions,  —  get  it 
out.  Young  men,  become  very  much  attached  to  those 
who  do  not  like  you.  Those  who  do,  will  be  your 
worst  enemies  generally ;  they  won't  tell  you  your 
faults.  They  will  let  you  grow  up  into  a  little  god ; 
they  will  let  you  be  the  lump  of  sugar  which  all  the 
brothers  and  sisters  will  stir  around  in  the  sweet  cup 
of  their  meetings  ;  and  "  our  beloved  pastor,"  and  "  what 
our  dear  brother  has  said,"  and  all  those  little  endearing 
phrases,  will  pass  around,  that  do  not  do  you  half  as 
much  good  as  the  rough-hewing  of  some  old  man  or 
young  man  given  to  plain  speaking.  It  may  be  hard 
to  take ;  but  manliness,  broadness,  versatility,  large- 
ness, all-sidedness,  —  these  are  in  the  meeting ;  get 
them  out !  When,  therefore,  things  are  brought  in 
that  seem  inchoate,  —  they  may  be  so,  and  yet  may 
answer  a  purpose.  Anything  in  the  world  but  regula- 
tion dullness  in  a  prayer-meeting.  Have  life !  Mis- 
takes ?  Meetings  can  bear  mistakes.  Misproportions  ? 
Meetings  can  bear  misproportions.    In  the  statement 


102 


LECTURES  ON  PEEACHING. 


of  views,  it  is  not  necessary  that  everything  should 
always  be  orthodox.  Men  forget  in  ten  minutes.  As 
whales  take  in  vast  volumes  of  water  and  spurt  it 
out,  but  keep  the  animalculae  in  it  for  their  food,  so 
four  fifths  of  our  preaching  is  all  squirted  out  again ! 
But  there  are  a  few  things  that  remain  with  everybody. 
In  a  Christian  community  and  a  trained  church  there 
is  a  kind  of  appropriating  instinct ;  and  the  carefulness, 
the  excessive  caution,  that  men  employ,  it  seems  to  me, 
is  on  the  side  of  effeminacy,  not  on  the  side  of  large, 
manly  strength,  which  has  in  itself  safety  and  power 
and  godliness. 

BEGIN  AND  END  PROMPTLY. 

I  have  spoken  thus  far  of  the  Hindrances ;  now  a 
few  words  on  the  Helps. 

Let  all  prayer-meetings  begin  with  very  great 
promptness.  No  matter  if  there  is  not  another  person 
in  the  room ;  begin  and  sing  yourself  I  should  say 
that  among  the  mechanical  helps  in  prayer-meet- 
ings are  brevity,  and  prompt  beginning  and  ending 
at  the  time  appointed.  In  general,  short  meetings, 
half-hour  prayer-meetings,  are  better  than  those  an 
hour  long.  An  hour  meeting  is  incomparably  better 
than  one  of  an  hour  and  a  half,  except  in  very  extraor- 
dinary circumstances.  An  hour  is  the  average  length. 
I  am  very  particular  to  begin  at  the  moment  appointed, 
and  to  end  within  the  hour.  It  is  not  once  in  ten 
times  that  I  will  suffer  it  to  go  over  that  period,  and 
then  only  because  there  is  something  special  or  unusual. 
Do  not  let  a  meeting  drag. 


THE  PKAYER-MEETING  :  ITS  HELPS  AND  HINDRANCES.  103 


CULTIVATE  THE  SOCIAL  ELEMENT. 

Next,  no  prayer-meeting  is  good  that  has  not  a  cur- 
rent to  it,  that  has  not  momentum.  Keep  the  people  do- 
ing something.  Suppose  that  every  time  you  go  into 
a  prayer-meeting  you  walk  up  in  a  very  solemn  way, 
looking  at  nobody  and  speaking  to  nobody.  You  sit 
down  in  your  chair,  and  open  the  Bible,  and  read  a 
whole  chapter  that  may  have  tw^enty  different  thoughts 
and  subjects  in  it,  with  no  earthly  reason  of  adaptation 
except  that  chapters  are  generally  read  before  meetings. 
Then  you  make  a  prayer,  which  is  good  enough  in  its 
way,  but  nothing  special ;  then  you  sing  a  hymn,  and 
then  you  call  on  Deacon  So-and-so  to  make  a  prayer, 
and  then  you  sing  another  hymn,  and  then  say, 
"  Brethren,  the  meeting  is  thrown  open ;  if  anybody 
has  anything  to  say,  let  him  speak  on."  Then  comes 
the  great  pause,  and  as  the  brethren  have  nothing  more 
to  say,  "  We  will  close  with  such  a  hymn,"  and  that  is 
the  end  of  the  prayer-meeting.  Now,  suppose  instead 
of  that,  when  a  minister  comes  into  his  prayer-meeting, 
he  speaks  to  the  folks  at  the  door,  shakes  hands  with 
the  little  children  that  are  there,  shows  himself  among 
the  people,  and  goes  naturally  about,  familiarly,  genially, 
without  a  bit  of  the  priest  about  him,  the  awful 
responsibility"  air  all  gone,— why,  people's  minds 
are  limber !  they  spring  up  !  When  you  come  into  a 
prayer-meeting  room,  you  are  all  exhorted  to  feel  that 
you  are  coming  into  the  presence  of  God.  Well,  is 
God  a  scarecrow  ?  Is  God  a  devouring  fire  to  the  Chris- 
tian ?  Was  that  the  effect  that  Christ's  presence  pro- 
duced when  he  came  into  a  crowd  ?   As  I  read  it,  when 


104 


lecturp:s  on  preaching. 


he  came  anywhere,  there  .was  sunshine.  Everybody 
dropped  everything  else  and  rushed  to  him.  There 
w^as  an  almost  audacious  familiarity  with  him.  Every- 
body seemed  to  have  a  new  impetus  in  life ;  people's 
blood  went  tingling  through  thei|-  bodies  at  the  very 
sight  of  him.  His  was  a  joy-inspiring,  as  w^ell  as  a 
conscience-piercing,  presence  and  nature.  When  you 
put  a  pressure  of  the  kind  I  have  just  mentioned  upon 
people,  you  do  not  inspire  veneration,  but  you  do 
repress  all  those  genial,  tender,  and  sympathetic  feelings 
out  of  which  a  social  meeting  is  to  derive  its  forces. 
So,  in  coming  into  your  meeting,  make  it  as  social  as 
you  possibly  can. 

SMALL  ROOMS  THE  BEST. 

In  general,  meetings  are  held  in  rooms  too  large  for 
them.  A  chamber  prayer- meeting  is  better  than  a 
prayer-meeting  in  a  large  room,  by  reason  of  the  very 
force  of  contiguity.  But  if  only  a  large  room  can  be 
had,  and  only  a  few  people  come,  gather  the  few 
together  in  clusters  so  that  they  are  near  to  each  other ; 
then,  in  opening  the  meeting,  have  it  arranged  in  your, 
own  mind  in  such  a  w^ay  that  service  shall  follow 
service  with  rapidity,  —  short  prayers,  short  hymns,  and 
movement,  momentum.  Never  let  there  be  a  moment's 
pause ;  be  yourself  ready  to  fill  the  gap  if  others  do 
not ;  push  the  meeting  right  through,  from  beginning 
to  end.  There  is  a  great  deal  arising  from  the  mo- 
mentum which  a  meeting  generates. 


THE  PRAYER-MEETING  :  ITS  HELPS  AND  HINDRANCES. 


105 


LET  THERE  BE  VARIETY. 

There  is  no  earthly  reason  why  prayer-meetings 
should  be  twice  alike,  —  I  mean  in  form.  Suppose  that 
one  week  it  is  a  prayer  and  conference  meeting ;  that  is 
to  say,  prayer  predominating,  and  conference  taking  the 
minor  part.  The  next  week  let  it  be  just  the  reverse, 
—  conference  predominating,  and  prayer  being  compara- 
tively in  the  minority.  Then,  the  next  week,  let  it  be 
a  praise  meeting.  What  is  that  ?  A  meeting  in  wdiich 
most  of  the  time  is  filled  up  with  singing,  and  not  with 
either  prayer  or  conference.  Make  the  most  of  your 
materials  in  their  diversity.  Sometimes  you  will 
draw  out  one  side  of  your  congregation,  and  sometimes 
another  side.  Study  to  have  ever  something  differ- 
ent ;  not  necessarily  marked  out  and  prescribed  with 
authority,  so  that  it  must  inevitably  be  just  that,  with- 
out any  spontaneity  in  the  meeting ;  but  be  prepared  to 
make  the  meeting,  unless  the  meeting  makes  itself. 

IMPORTANCE  OF  SINGING. 

In  doing  this,  singing  is  of  transcendent  importance. 
Persons  say,  "What  shall  I  do  in  a  prayer-meeting 
if  I  have  nobody  that  knows  how  to  speak  ?  "  Sing  a 
hymn.  "  Well,  suppose  I  have  nobody  that  knows 
how  to  pray,  how  shall  I  get  along  with  that  .^."  ..  Sing 
a  hymn.  "  Well,  but  suppose  I  have  no  persons  that 
have  any  of  the  gifts  of  sympathy,  how^  shall  I  touch 
them?"  Through  hymns.  "Suppose  I  am  myself 
slow  of  speech  ? "  Give  out  hymns.  There  is  not  a 
single  feeling  from  the  top  to  the  bottom  of  human 
nature  that  has  not  been  struck  a  thousand  times  by 

5  * 


106 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


singing  hymns.  Hymns  have  this  peculiarity,  that 
they  are  the  most  glowing  inspirations  which  God  gives 
to  his  people  in  these  later  days,  crystallized  and  pre- 
served, so  that  they  may  by  sympathy  impart  the  feeling 
which  they  express.  As  long  as  a  man  has  a  good 
hymn-book  and  knowledge  how  to  use  it,  there  is  no 
reason  why  a  meeting  should  not  be  thoroughly  edify- 
ing and  good. 

SUMMING  UP. 

One  word  in  closing.  All  these  multitudinous  de- 
tails that  I  have  mentioned,  you  perliaps  may  not  carry 
away  with  you  in  your  memory  ;  but  when  you  go 
into  your  respective  fields  of  labor,  and  one  difficulty 
after  another  comes  up,  you  may  then  possibly  re- 
member these  suggestions.  I  would  sum  them  all  up 
in  this  :  Do  not  be  discouraged  because  your  field  is 
hard  and  the  people  scattered,  because  the  caliber  of 
your  people  is  small,  because  the  meetings  are  dull  and 
hard,  because  the  w^ork  is  severe.  Your  reward  will  be 
in  proportion  to  your  skill  and  your  endurance.  Ee- 
member,  a  prayer-meeting  develops  piety  under  the  in- 
fluence of  social  enthusiasm,  and  there  is  in  social 
enthusiasm  a  power  that  no  man  can  imagine  who  has 
not  tried  it. 

Oh,  wh^t waste  there  is!  What  unused  power  there 
is  in  the  social  relations  of  men  in  churches  that  is 
hardly  suspected,  and  that  never  comes  out  except  in 
times  of  revival !  And  then  it  is  set  down  to  the 
credit  of  the  Divine  Spirit "  ;  as  if  that  did  not  abide 
in  men  ever  and  always  !  Why  is  it  that,  when  I  use 
guano,  I  get  good  crops  ?      Why,  that  is  the  Divine 


THE  PRAYER-MEETING  :  ITS  HELPS  AND  HINDRANCES.  107 

Providence,"  men  say.  Divine  Providence  !  Yes  ;  and 
every  time  you  use  guano,  Divine  Providence  will  do 
the  same  thing.  And  when  there  is  a  revival,  that  is, 
when  you  are  awake,  and  when  your  life  is  real  and  full 
and  joyous,  and  you  have  liberty  of  expression,  then 
you  will  know  that  meetings  may  mount  up  into  rap- 
ture. You  have  such  power  and  blessedness  in  them 
that  you  get  the  testimony  of  God  to  a  secret  power 
which  you  may  develop  all  the  year  round.  The  main- 
spring of  the  prayer-meeting  must  always  be  the  social 
element,  the  subtle  power  of  sympathy.  Work  for  that, 
and  by  God's  blessing  you  will  work  a  right  end. 

QUESTIONS  AND  ANSWERS. 
Q.  Suppose  you  give  out  a  hymn,  and  there  is  nobody  to  sing  it  ? 

Mr.  Beecher.  —  Sing  yourself. 

Q.  But  suppose  you  cannot  ? 

Mr.  Beecher.  —  That  is  a  point  on  which  I  ought  to 
have  spoken.  Every  minister  who  is  ordained  in  the 
Eoman  Catholic  Church  is  obliged  to  know  music.  It 
is  a  part  of  the  qualification  of  the  priesthood  in  that 
church,  and  it  ought  to  be  so  in  our  churches.  When 
you  have  got  through  examining  a  man  on  all  didactic 
theology,  let  him  sing.  It  is  far  more  important  with 
us  than  it  is  in  the  hierarchical  church,  for  there  the 
minister  intones,  and  does  not  sing ;  but  you  have  to 
sing.  When  you  get  to  the  point  where  bad  rhetoric 
and  bad  music  meet,  there  is  intoning.  Now,  in  all 
new  settlements,  in  visiting  the  sick  you  will  be  ex- 
pected to  sing ;  in  your  prayer-meetings  you  will  have 
to  "  set  the  tune."    If  you  have  n't  learned  how  to 


108 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


sing,  and  are  going  West,  or  into  new  settlements,  let 
one  of  the  first  things  you  learn  be  how  to  "  raise  "  a 
tune.    And,  if  you  can't  sing,    oake  a  joyful  noise." 

Q.  How  as  to  attitudes  in  prayer,  whether  in  the  pulpit  or  the 
prayer-meeting  ? 

Mr.  Beecher.  —  It  is  purely  a  matter  of  choice.  Some 
persons  in  the  pulpit  are  trained  to  pray  standing,  —  I 
have  been.  I  find  it  is  natural  to  me.  Others  —  and 
almost  always  in  the  Methodist  Church  —  kneel  for 
prayers  ;  but  it  would  be  very  awkward  for  me.  I  do 
not  know  that  there  is  any  advantage  in  one  attitude 
over  the  other.  The  best  prayer-meetings  I  ever  had  in 
my  early  parishes  were  those  that  came  along  after  I  had 
got  through  with  the  main  one.  That  is,  when  we  had 
finished  the  regulation  prayer-meeting,  and  there  was 
something  th^t  interested  the  folks,  and  we  got  around 
the  stove,  a  dozen  or  fifteen  of  us,  and  fell  to  talking 
about  something.  Some  of  those  who  were  not  so  much 
interested  stood  off  on  the  edge,  and  were  looking  over 
the  hymn-book  and  humming  a  tune.  Then  we  all 
joined,  and  sang  the  tune,  and  thus  we  had  a  meeting. 
Time  and  again  they  have  said,  "  Now  we  have  had  our 
meeting."  The  simple  reason  of  it  was,  we  had  had 
the  real,  free,  spontaneous,  social  elements,  kindling 
religious  fervor  and  feeling. 

Now,  in  prayer,  if  a  man  wants  to  stand,  let  him 
stand,  if  that  be  natural  to  him.  I  suspect  that  the 
difference  between  kneeling  and  standing  is  not  so 
great  but  that  good  prayers  get  up  there  about  alike. 

Q.  What  about  the  choice  of  subjects  for  remarks  ? 

Mr.  Beecher. —  Of  course,  there  are  all  those  subjects 


THE  PKAYEK-MEETING  :  ITS  HELPS  AND  HINDRANCES.  109 


that  belong  to  the  foundation  of  Christian  experience 
and  Christian  character;  but  then,  the  providence  of 
God  is  choosing  subjects  for  you  all  the  while,  in  your 
village,  in  your  town,  —  the  festivities  in  this  family, 
the  funeral  ceremonies  in  that  family,  the  misfortunes 
of  this  brother,  the  success  of  that  one,  the  going  out 
of  a  young  man  to  preach  or  to  college,  the  children 
and  the  mortality  among  them,  the  losses  of  men.  For 
instance,  if  T  had  a  prayer-meeting  here  in  certain  cir- 
cles, I  would  make  the  failure  of  a  banking-house  the 
subject  of  a  prayer-meeting,  and  the  text,  "  Lay  up  your 
treasures  in  heaven,  where  moth  or  rust  cannot  corriipt, 
nor  thieves  break  through  and  steal."  Such  themes, 
things  that  people  were  feeling  before  they  came  into 
meeting,  things  that  they  really  want  some  comfort  or 
some  light  about, —  those  are  the  things  from  which  you 
can  get  a  religious  influence.  Sometimes  they  will  take 
you  out  of  the  sphere  of  strictly  religious  themes,  but 
they  will  not  be  less  profitable  on  that  account.  It  is 
said,  we  ought  not  to  introduce  secular  topics  into  the 
church.  I  say,  take  any  secular  topic  you  can  find,  and 
bring  it  into  the  church,  and  make  it  redolent  of  Chris- 
tian ethics,  and  tlien  carry  it  out  again  into  its  place. 
If  you  bring  a  thing  into  the  church,  and  then  turn  it 
out  of  doors  again,  it  goes  out  with  a  new  coat  on. 

Q.  What  do  you  say  in  reference  to  the  three-minute  rule  for 
prayers  in  prayer-meeting  1 

Mr.  Beecher.  —  It  is  like  all  mere  mechanical  rules  ; 
it  answers  a  good  purpose  to  begin  with,  but  I  should 
slack  off  all  such  rules  just  as  soon  as  the  people  got 
the  idea  in  their  heads.    You  must  remember  you  have 


110 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


got  an  intelligent  people.  Do  not  despise  common 
folks.  You  can  manage  an  average  American  audience ; 
you  can  make  them  learn  to  do  almost  anything.  Just 
throw  yourself  upon  them  ;  give  them  to  understand  that 
you  expect  good  judgment  of  them.  I  remember  at  a 
camp-meeting  in  Logan  sport,  Indiana,  on  a  Sunday, 
there  were  five  thousand  people  present,  and  no  police. 
The  rule  out  there  is  to  have  camp-meetings  amply 
policed.  I  got  up  in  the  desk  and  said,  "  Friends,  there 
are  five  thousand  of  you  here  to-day ;  it  is  very  hot 
and  dusty,  there  is  very  little  water,  the  children  will 
be  fretful,  mothers  may  be  tired,  it  is  feared  that  there 
may  be  trouble.  Now  we  have  n't  a  single  watchman 
or  policeman  on  this  ground.  If  there  is  good  order 
here  to-day,  you  will  have  to  keep  it."  I  had  no  occa- 
sion to  say  another  word.  Everybody  took  care  of  him- 
self In  a  prayer-meeting  it  is  pretty  easy  to  let  them 
understand  that  they  must  be  short ;  a  little  manage- 
ment will  bring  them  around,  and  they  will  be  short, 
and  fervent,  and  to  the  point. 

When  you  go  into  a  new  field,  —  a  Sunday-school 
convention,  for  instance,  —  and  have  to  start  with  raw 
material,  then  it  is  that  you  need  rules  for  three-minute 
prayers  and  speeches,  and  sometimes  they  will  be 
shorter  than  three  minutes.  I  don't  think  it  took  the 
publican  three  minutes  to  say,  "  God  be  merciful  to  me 
a  sinner ! "  and  yet  it  was  an  admirable  prayer. 

Q.  Would  you  advise  the  ladies  to  speak  and  pray  ] 

Mr.  Beecher.  —  I  would. 

Q.  Suppose  they  would  n^t  do  it  ? 

Mr.  Beecher.  —  That  is  just  my  case  exactly.  I  bear 
their  silence. 


THE  PRAYEU-MEETING  :  ITS  HELPS  AND  HINDRANCES.  Ill 


Q.  What  do  you  think  of  the  custom  of  announcing  subjects 
beforehand  1 

Mr.  Beecher.  —  I  don't  like  it.  I  think  there  may 
be  exceptional  cases.  During  all  my  ministry  I  have 
refused  with  the  utmost  obstinacy  to  tell  what  I  was 
going  to  preach  on,  even  when  it  was  going  to  be  a 
very  important  subject.  If  you  advertise  when  you 
are  going  to  preach  something  that  is  worth  hearing, 
people  will  take  it  for  granted  that,  when  you  do  not 
advertise,  your  preaching  is  to  be  all  filling  up.  It  will 
be  well  to  make  a  few  rules  like  this  :  If  it  is  a  wet 
day,  do  your  very  best ;  make  your  wet-day  sermons 
better  than  any  other,  even  if  it  kills  you.  And  never 
repeat  them,  no  matter  how  much  those  who  were  not 
there  may  want  to  hear  them.  If  you  have  an  impor- 
tant subject,  never  advertise  it;  and  the  result  will  be 
that  people  will  say,  "  If  you  get  those  fine  sermons, 
you  must  go  all  the  time,  and  take  what  he  gives  you." 
It  w^ill  produce  the  tendency  to  go  always. 

The  gentleman  who  asked  the  last  question  said  :  "  My  ques- 
tion was  misunderstood.  It  was  with  reference  to  announcing  a 
subject  in  the  prayer-meeting,  so  that  people  may  have  an  oppor- 
tunity to  think  about  it.^' 

Mr.  Beecher.  —  I  beg  pardon.  Sometimes  I  should 
do  it,  and  sometimes  I  should  not.  I  should  never  do 
twice  alike  if  I  could  help  it. 

Q.  You  speak  about  fiHing  up  the  gaps  and  having  no  pauses. 
Might  not  sometimes  silent  prayers  of  a  minute  or  two  have  a 
good  effect  1 

Mr.  Beecher.  —  0  yes,  if  you  do  it  on  purpose. 
This  makes  a  great  difference.  When  Randolph  w^as 
asked  by  a  man,    Mr.  Randolph,  how  is  it  that  you  con- 


112 


LECTURES  ON  PREACtlll^C^. 


trive  such  pauses  in  your  discourses  ?  They  are  tremen- 
dously effective."  "  Pauses  ? "  said  Mr.  Kandolph  ;  "  I 
pause  because  I  have  nothing  to  say."  The  difficulty 
in  prayer-meetings  is,  that  those  pauses  are  because 
people  have  nothing  to  say,  and  the  effect  is  tremen- 
dous, —  but  in  the  wrong  direction. 

Q.  Would  you  ahvays  read  a  passage  from  the  Scriptures  in 
opening  a  prayer-meeting  ? 

Mr.  Beeciier.  —  No,  I  should  not.  I  very  seldom 
open  my  prayer-meetings  in  that  way.  I  had  far 
rather  bring  it  in  from  time  to  time.  The  Scripture, 
you  know,  is  an  encyclopedia.  If  a  man  should  sit 
down  and  read  an  encyclopedia  page  by  page,  without 
any  regard  to  subject  or  occasion,  he  would  do  what  is 
often  done  in  reading  the  Bible.  If  I  have  any  theme 
that  I  want  to  speak  upon,  I  make  up  my  mind  just 
about  what  group  of  passages  bear  on  the  matter  I  am 
to  take  in  hand.  I  find  my  place,  and  lay  the  Bible 
down  close  by,  and  don't  let  the  folks  know  I  am 
going  to  use  it.  I  start  the  meeting  and  throw  out 
that  topic ;  and  if  it  takes,  and  is  congenial,  and  the 
audience  open  here  and  there  and  express  themselves, 
and  the  prayers  run  in  that  channel,  I  can  take  up  my 
Bible,  and  say,  "  Brethren,  here,  see  what  is  said  here  "  ; 
and  I  read  those  passages  I  had  selected,  and  let  them 
observe  how  they  illustrate,  corroborate,  or  refute,  as 
the  case  may  be. 

Q.  Would  you  call  upon^  the  young  people  of  your  meeting 
who  may  want  to  speak,  but  are  diffident  ? 

Mr.  Beecher.  —  I  would.  It  is  a  good  thing  for  them 
to  have  an  exercise-meeting  of  their  own  where,  among 


TtlE  PRAYER-MEETING  :  ITS  HELPS  AND  HINDRANCES.  113 


themselves,  they  can  break  down  bashfulness  and  build 
up  confidence,  familiarity ;  and  then,  in  easy  and  gentle 
methods,  let  them  also  exercise  their  gifts  in  the  larger 
meetings. 

Q.  Would  you  generally  lead  your  own  prayer-meeting,  as 
pastor  ? 

Mr.  Beecher.  —  I  think  that  every  pastor  ought  to 
lead  one  prayer-meeting  a  week  in  his  church,  no  mat- 
ter how  many  others  there  are.  It  is  his  drill-meeting. 
It  is  the  time  when  he  goes  into  the  very  Holy  of 
Holies,  among  his  people.  It  is  the  time  above  all 
others  when  he  lays  his  hand  on  the  very  palpitating 
heart  of  his  people.  He  cannot  afford,  for  his  own 
sake  as  a  preacher,  nor  for  that  of  the  work  in  the 
church,  not  to  be  present  every  week,  and  be  in  the 
very  heart  of  it. 

Q.  Do  you  speak  generally  before  the  meetings,  or  during 
them  ? 

Mr.  Beecher.  —  Sometimes  one,  sometimes  the  other. 
If  people  come  in  and  seem  to  have  no  spirit  or  fire,  I 
usually  open  with  the  first  prayer  myself,  especially 
when  my  heart  is  full,  and  bring  them  into  kindling 
sympathy  with  me,  and  through  me  with  God.  Or,  at 
other  times,  if  I  see  signs  of  interest  and  feeling,  I  let 
them  lead  off,  sometimes  let  them  introduce  the  topic ; 
and,  if  there  is  occasion,  I  close  the  meeting  myself 
with  prayer,  so  as  to  sum  up  all  the  facts  and  give  them 
the  last  direction.  The  rule  should  be,  never  use  any 
one  method  all  the  time. 


V. 


EELATIONS  OF  MUSIC  TO  WOESHIR 

USIC  is  one  of  the  most  important  auxili- 
aries of  the  preacher.  I  do  not  hold  those 
things  alone  to  be  auxiliary  which  have  an 
apparent  and  an  immediate  bearing  on  the 
sermon  as  such ;  but,  as  I  have  before  explained  to  you, 
the  sermon  is  only  one  element  of  the  whole  movement, 
and  the  preacher  should  develop  the  course  in  a  kind  of 
unity,  the  sermon  being  a  constituent  part,  and  perhaps 
the  central  and  the  grand  element.  Music  comes,  I 
thinkj  in  its  capacity  of  doing  good,  next  to  preaching. 
Its  power  is  as  yet  a  thing  undeveloped.  Consider,  for 
instance,  what  our  impressions  were  as  to  the  avail- 
ability of  music  in  the  Sunday-school  twenty-five  or 
thirty  years  ago,  and  compare  the  Sunday-schools  of 
to-day  with  those  of  that  period.  What  would  our 
schools  be,  if  you  should  drop  out  of  them  bodily  the 
music  of  the  schools  ?  They  would  almost  dissolve  and 
vanish.  It  is  the  invisible  chain  which  holds  them 
together  and  animates  them ;  and  there  is  a  power  in 
music  to  reach,  to  direct,  to  comfort  the  feelings  of  the 
Christian's  heart,  which  is,  comparatively  speaking,  yet 


RELATIONS  OF  MUSIC  TO  WORSHIP.  115 

undreamed  of.  In  the  churches  where  liturgical  forms 
prevail,  it  becomes  necessary  that  the  minister,  as  an 
administrator,  should  have  some  degree  of  consideration 
for  music,  without  which  it  is  almost  impossible  to  ren- 
der the  liturgical  service ;  but  in  those  churches  which 
disallow  a  service  and  make  everything  extempora- 
neous, how  seldom  do  we  find  a  man  who  is  able  in 
preaching,  and  at  the  same  time  considerate  and  ear- 
nest and  zealous  on  the  subject  of  music !  The  com- 
plaint which  I  hear  from  conductors  of  music  is,  that 
there  is  no  person  in  the  congregation  so  indifferent  to 
the  cultivation  of  music  as  the  minister.  Now  and  then 
there  is  an  exception;  but  generally  the  minister  is 
glad  to  have  a  conductor  who  will  take  the  whole 
responsibility  from  his  shoulders ;  and  then,  so  that 
there  be  quiet  in  the  choir  and  no  disturbance  in  the 
congregation,  he  does  not  trouble  himself  any  more 
about  the  matter. 

THE  minister's  DUTY. 

Now,  every  minister  not  only  should  be  able  upon  oc- 
casion to  conduct  musical  service,  but  he  should  make 
it  a  part  of  his  cure,  his  anxiety  in  the  development  of 
the  religious  life  of  his  congregation,  to  have  music  not 
only  good,  but  increasingly  good  ;  and  he  should  devote 
his  time  and  energy  to  it,  just  as  he  would  to  the  de- 
velopment of  any  topic  for  discourse.  Music  is  itself 
an  agent  in  affecting,  not  so  much  the  understanding,  as 
that  part  of  man's  nature  which  the  sermon  usually  leaves 
comparatively  barren.  Now,  it  is  true  of  the  Eoman 
service,  and  to  a  great  extent  of  the  Episcopal  service, 
that  it  touches  the  devout  imagination ;  that  it  reaches 


116 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


toward,  if  it  does  not  actually  inspire,  veneration  and 
awe ;  that  it  does  feel  for  the  chords  whose  response  is 
worship.  Nothing  is  more  frequent,  therefore,  than  to 
see  persons  who  have  been  brought  up  in  the  Quaker 
faith,  or  the  plain  faith  of  our  fathers,  and  their  plainer 
worship,  their  barren  worship  almost,  going  over  to 
those  churches,  and  explaining  it  not  on  doctrinal 
grounds,  or  grounds  of  ecclesiastical  affinity,  but  sim- 
ply that  they  feel  the  need  of  a  worshiping  element, 
which  is  provided  for  them  there,  and  not  with  us.  In- 
deed, if  I  were  to  say  what  was  the  marked,  the  charac- 
teristic, fault  of  congregational  churches,  whether  Bap- 
tist, or  Presbyterian,  or  Congregational,  I  sliould  say  it 
was  the  almost  entire  non-provision  for  the  element  of 
worship.  There  is  nothing  in  their  economy  that  pro- 
vides for  it  to  any  considerable  extent.  It  depends 
upon  good  fortune  whether  you  have  a  pastor  who  has 
a  natural  genius  for  devotion.  If  you  have  not,  there 
is  no  other  provision  for  it ;  nor  is  there  any  source 
within  our  reach  from  which  it  can  be  derived,  aside 
from  the  mere  emotion  of  the  man  who  conducts  the 
public  worship. 

MUSIC.  THE  preacher's  PRIME  MINISTER. 

There  is  no  instrumentality  that  I  know  of,  except 
that  of  music.  It  is  the  function  of  music  to  begin 
at  the  point  at  which  the  sermon  ends.  That  instructs, 
that  incites  to  emotion  through  the  reason.  Now 
comes  music,  following  it  up  and  inciting  to  emotion 
through  the  imagination,  through  the  taste,  through 
the  feelings ;  and  it  takes  the  same  truths  which  may 
have  been  expressed  dogmatically.    The  truths  which 


RELATIONS  OF  MUSIC  TO  WORSHIP.  117 

have  taken  on  intellectual  forms,  and  satisfied  all  that 
part  of  the  mind,  are  now  rendered  substantial  by  song, 
and  fill  up  and  satisfy  all  the  other  demands  of  the 
mind,  making  a  round  and  complete  work.  It  is  very 
rare  that,  in  any  one  discourse  or  in  any  day's  dis- 
coursing, a  man  is  so  gifted  as  to  be  able  to  reach 
tlirough  the  reason  to  the  great  foundation  chords  of 
feeling  in  the  haman  soul.  It  is  very  rare  that  a  man 
gets  through  a  day  in  giving  out  well-selected  hymns, 
without  reaching  those  chords  through  the  spiritual 
songs,  if  they  are  rightly  administered.  And  in  our 
churches,  above  all  others,  this  is  necessary,  in  order 
to  mend  that  barrenness,  that  want  of  provision  for 
the  esthetic  feeling,  the  fancy  and  the  imagination 
and  the  more  facile  emotions,  which  are  not  provid- 
ed for  by  any  framework  furnished  to  the  preacher, 
and  which,  according  to  his  various  abilities  and  en- 
dowments or  moods,  circumstances  may  or  may  not 
have  partially  provided  for  in  him.  But,  if  he  were  a 
Shakespeare,  it  is  impossible  for  any  man  living,  twice 
a  day  for  fifty-two  Sabbaths  of  the  year,  to  stand  with 
such  plenary  power  and  originality  as  to  meet  all 
those  wants  of  men  himself,  unsuccored  and  unhelped. 
And  his  auxiliary,  if  he  knows  the  provision  made  for 
him,  his  grand  auxiliary,  the  prime  minister  of  the 
preacher,  is  music. 

CHURCH  MUSIC,  —  THE  ORGAN. 

I  shall  speak,  then,  of  music  in  the  church,  in  social 
relations,  in  the  prayer-meeting.  As  to  church  music, 
there  first  arises  the  question  of  instrumental  music. 
Where  instrumental  music  is  introduced  for  the  pur- 


118 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


pose,  for  instance,  of  giving  tone  and  time,  —  where  it  is 
a  mere  auxiliary  of  that  kind,  it  is  not  without  its  uses. 
Even  so  poor  as  are  the  country  provisions  of  flute, 
violin,  and  bass-viol,  they  are  not  to  be  despised.  There 
is  great  help  in  them.  But  now,  in  the  growing  intel- 
ligence and  taste  and  wealth  of  our  country,  the  old 
prejudices  against  instrumental  music  having  for  the 
most  part  quite  died  out,  the  organ  is  distinctively  the 
instrument  which  is  employed  in  all  our  churches. 
And,  happily,  we  now  have  so  many  organ-builders,  and 
the  competition  is  such,  that  the  church  must  be  very 
poor  that  cannot  provide  for  itself  an  organ  in  some 
degree  commensurate  with  its  actual  wants.  I  would 
not  be  thought  unduly  enthusiastic  in  speaking  of  this 
instrument,  which  I  look  upon  as  an  historian  looks 
upon  a  great  nation  that  through  a  thousand  years 
has  been  developed  by  providential  events  and  educ- 
tions, until  it  has  reached  a  place  in  which  it  stands 
manifestly  a  prime,  a  divine  power  in  the  world.  I  look 
upon  the  history  and  the  development  of  the  organ  for 
Christian  uses  as  a  sublime  instance  of  the  guiding  hand 
of  God's  providence.  It  is  the  most  complex  of  all 
instruments,  it  is  the  most  harmonious  of  all,  it  is 
the  grandest  of  all.  Beginning  far  back,  growing  as 
things  grow  which  have  great  and  final  uses,  growing 
little  by  little,  it  has  come  now  to  stand,  I  think, 
immeasurably,  trans cendently,  above  every  other  in- 
strument, and  not  only  that,  but  above  every  combina- 
tion of  instruments :  for,  although  you  may  obtain  cer- 
tain effects,  certain  movements,  and  a  kind  of  lifelike 
elasticity  from  orchestral  performances  ;  although  there 
are  sinuous  and  arrowy  elements  in  them,  and  there 


KELATIONS  OF  MUSIC  TO  WORSHIP. 


119 


is  a  certain  spirit  of  personal  enthusiasm  inspired  by 
them,  where  they  are  carried  to  a  very  high  extent  of 
culture,  as  in  those  foreign  bands  that  visited  us  last 
season  for  the  Boston  Jubilee,  or  in  our  own  Thomas's 
orchestra ;  although,  in  rare  exceptions,  you  can  combine 
instruments  in  such  a  way  as  to  do  some  things  which 
the  organ  cannot  do,  —  yet  the  finest  orchestra  that 
ever  stood  on  earth,  compared  on  the  whole  with  the 
organ,  is  manifestly  its  inferior.  No  orchestra  that  ever 
existed  had  the  breadth,  the  majesty,  the  grandeur,  that 
belong  to  this  prince  of  instruments.  It  is  true  that 
now,  by  reason  of  comparatively  recent  improvements 
in  the  construction  of  the  organ,  it  can  be  played  as 
rapidly  as  the  piano  can,  but  only  its  upper  or  what 
are  called  its  "  fancy  "  stops  will  bear  any  such  hand- 
ling as  that.  For  the  organ  means  majesty  ;  it  means 
grandeur.  It  means  sweetness,  to  be  sure,  but  it  is 
sweetness  in  power,  like  the  bubbling  crests  of  waves 
on  the  ocean.  Whatever  it  has  of  sweetness,  of  fine- 
ness, or  of  delicacy,  there  is,  moreover,  an  under-power 
that  is  like  the  sea  itself.  And  I  thank  God  a  thou- 
sand times  a  year,  when  I  see  how  many  things  taste 
and  the  social  elements  have  stolen  from  religion,  and 
I  turn  to  this  one  solitary  exception  and  know  that 
there  is  left  to  religion,  as  peculiarly  its  own,  at  least 
the  organ,  —  the  grandest  thing  that  ever  was  thought 
of  or  combined  in  human  ingenuity.  Eunning  through 
all  the  various  qualities  of  tone,  as  soft  and  as  sweet 
as  the  song-sparrow  (which  is  the  sweetest  bird 
that  sings),  and  in  its  complexity  rising  through  all 
gradations,  imitating  almost  everything  that  is  known 
of  sounds  on  earth,  it  expresses  at  last  the  very  thun- 


120 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


der  and  the  earthquake,  and  almost  the  final  trumpet 
itself! 

FUNCTION  OF  THE  ORGAN,  —  THE  OPENING. 

What,  then,  has  the  organ  to  do  in  the  church  ? 
Usually,  when  we  enter  churches,  we  are  greeted  at 
once  with  the  sound  of  the  organ.  What  is  the  first 
thing  ideally  ?  Under  the  hand  of  a  master  who  is 
in  sympathy  with  the  ends  and  the  economy  of  the 
church,  what  is  the  prime  function  of  the  organ  ?  A 
great  many  of  you  will  say,  "  I  don't  know  exactly 
what.  It  is  the  custom  always  to  play  wlien  the  peo- 
ple are  coming  into  church,  or  to  begin  the  service 
with  the  organ."  What  for  ?  Why  do  they  begin  the 
service  with  the  organ  ?  What  uses  do  you  yourselves 
conceive  in  it  ?  I  will  tell  you  what  I  think  about 
it.  I  think  that  when  the  family  comes  to  church, 
having  been  hurried  and  flurried  in  getting  the  children 
ready,  —  when  the  little  brood  have  been  looked  after, 
and  the  five  or  the  six  are  combed  and  curled  and 
hooked  and  shoed,  and  all  got  in  order,  the  house  shut 
up  and  secure,  and  the  little  throng  safely  housed 
in  the  pew,  —  the  mind  all  fluttered  with  those  sweet 
domestic  cares,  —  it  is  a  great  relief  if  something  can 
quietly,  imperceptibly,  smooth  those  cares  away.  Some 
come  from  their  houses,  heavy  with  the  lassitude  of 
oversleeping  on  Saturday  night  and  Sunday  morning. 
Having  been  excessively  pressed  during  the  week,  they 
get  up  drowsy  and  sleepy,  eat  their  nine  o'clock  or  ten 
o'clock  breakfast,  come  away  to  church,  and  are  spent. 
There  is  nothing  in  them.  Others  come  in,  frivolous 
and  gay  and  genial. 


RELATIONS  OF  MUSIC  TO  WORSHIP. 


121 


If  there  were  any  such  thing  possible  as  that,  the  mo- 
ment they  passed  the  threshold,  you  could  roll  down  a 
curtain  behind  them,  so  that  all  the  world  should  dis- 
appear and  be  forgotten,  and  so  that  care  should  fall 
behind,  and  dullness  and  weariness  and  sorrow,  and 
all  doubts  and  all  fears,  should  vanish,  —  if  it  were 
possible  to  make  the  door  of  the  cathedral  or  of  the 
church  a  screen  through  which  should  come  the  fresh, 
living,  immortal  soul,  but  none  of  its  drudgeries  or 
cares,  how  blessed  would  that  be  ! 

Now,  that  is  what  the  organ  undertakes,  or  should  un- 
dertake, to  do.  It  should  take  up  the  congregation  and 
wash  them  clean  in  sound.  It  should  disperse  all  these 
secular  and  worldly  impressions,  associations,  thoughts, 
and  feelings,  and  lift  them  up  into  the  aesthetic,  —  the 
imaginative.  "  Very  well ;  but  is  that  worship  ?  is  that 
religion  ? "  No,  but  it  is  that  state  of  mind  out  of 
which  comes,  more  easily  than  from  any  other,  the 
next  stage,  of  positive  religious  feeling.  When  a  con- 
gregation are  set  free  from  the  entanglements  and  bur- 
dens of  the  world,  and  brought  into  the  higher  realms 
of  imagination,  fancy,  and  feeling,  they  are  ready  for 
the  plastic  touch,  they  are  ready  to  listen,  to  take  part 
indeed.  If  an  organ  be  well  played  in  the  beginning, 
as  soon  as  its  tones  cease,  the  congregation  is  reason- 
ably prepared  to  join  with  the  choir  in  the  singing  of 
the  opening  hymn  or  anthem. 

THE  HYMN  ACCOMPANIMENT. 

Next  to  this  is  its  accompanying  powder.  I  am 
accustomed  to  think  of  a  congregation  with  an  organ 
as  of  a  fleet  of  boats  in  the  harbor,  or  on  the  waters. 


122 


LECTURES  ON  PKEACHING. 


The  organ  is  tlie  flood,  and  the  people  are  the  boats  ; 
and  they  are  buoyed  up  and  carried  along  upon  its  cur- 
rent as  boats  are  borne  upon  the  depths  of  the  sea.  So, 
aside  from  mere  musical  reasons,  there  is  this  iiower 
that  comes  upon  people,  that  encircles  them,  that  fills 
them,  —  this  great,  mighty  ocean-tone  ;  and  that  helps 
them  to  sing. 

Then,  besides,  comes  the  interlude.  Now,  the  inter- 
lude is  an  echo,  or  a  prophecy,  or  both.  If  it  be  an 
echo,  it  attempts  to  render  in  pure  musical  sound 
the  dominant  thought  of  the  stanza  that  went  before. 
If  it  be  a  prophecy,  it  sees  what  is  coming,  and  prepares 
the  way  for  it,  and  brings  the  devotional  congregation 
to  the  next  stanza.*  And  if  it  be  in  the  hands  of  a 
Christian  man,  and  a  man  of  musical  genius,  it  may 
help  much.  Otherwise,  it  is  a  mere  noisy  gap  between 
two  verses,  a  sprawl  sometimes,  an  awful  racket  of 
chords,  a  sort  of  running  up  stairs  and  tumbling  down 
again.  Not  one  organist  in  ten  seems  to  have  the 
slightest  idea  why  an  interlude  should  be  played. 
John  Zundel-f-  knows.  I  wish  John  Zundel  had  a  hun- 
dred thousand  children,  and  every  one  was  another 
John  Zundel.    I  speak  thus,  not  to  have  his  name  go 

*  As  to  the  class  of  music  suitable  for  the  organ,  Mr.  Beecher  said 
that  there  was  an  ample  supply  of  ecclesiastical  music,  that  had  been 
accunmlating  for  four  or  five  hundred  years,  and  was  sufficient  for  all 
church  requirements.  But  there  is  no  objection  to  what  is  called 
''secular"  music,  if  it  be  in  its  nature  devotion -breathing.  For  ex- 
ample, much  of  the  music  of  Mendelssohn  and  of  Mozart,  almost  all 
that  of  Yon  Weber  and  of  Beethoven,  can  be  adapted  to  the  church. 
But  music  which  is  frivolous,  which  recalls  the  waltz  and  the  opera, 
is  a  desecration. 

t  The  able,  and  now  venerable,  organist  of  Plymouth  Church, 


RELATIONS  OF  MUSIC  TO  WORSHIP.  123 

out ;  but  to  him  music  means  worship,  and  the  organ 
means  religion.  He  is  the  man  who  told  me,  when 
he  was  converted,  that  he  "  prayed  just  as  other  people 
did  now."  Why,"  said  I,  what  do  you  mean  ? "  Said 
he,  "  I  speak  my  prayers  out  to  God."  "  Well,  how 
did  you  always  do  ? "  "I  always  played  them  on 
the  piano  before,"  said  he.  Such  was  his  habit.  So 
long  had  he  been  trained,  that  what  words  are  to  us 
notes  were  to  him  ;  and  he  expressed  every  thought 
and  every  feeling  that  he  had  upon  the  instrument. 
And  you  would  think  he  did  it  yet,  if  you  heard  him 
in  his  inspired  moments  upon  the  organ.  It  has 
brought  tears  to  my  eyes  a  hundred  times  ;  I  have  gone 
in  jaded  and  unhearted,  and  have  been  caught  up  by 
him  and  lifted  so  that  I  saw  the  flash  of  the  gates  !  I 
have  been  comforted ;  I  have  been  helped.  And  if  I 
have  preached  to  him  and  helped  him,  —  and  I  know 
I  have,  —  he  has  preached  to  me  and  helped  me;  and 
he  knows  not,  and  never  will  know,  how  much. 

THE  CLOSING  VOLUNTARY. 

If  a  person  has  been  listening  to  a  discourse  which 
has  stirred  up  the  conscience,  and  awakened  fear,  and 
left  the  soul  in  a  distressed  state,  there  is  a  way  of  giv- 
ing relief  without  discharging  the  feeling.  There  is  in 
music  a  power  of  lifting  the  soul  towards  the  great 
music-land.  If  persons  in  the  congregation  are  going 
out  in  a  state  of  stricture,  —  or  of  rapture  of  mind, 
even,  —  whichever  way,  the  organ,  by  sympathy  or  by 
contrast,  can  dismiss  them  into  the  world,  having,  as  it 
were,  liquified  the  sermon,  and  poured  it  out  into  the 
very  atmosphere. 


124 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


ORGANISTS. 

Now,  the  pity  of  this  matter  i?.  that  ministers  care  so 
little  about  it,  and  persons  in  the  church  know  so  little 
about  it,  that  organists  do  pretty  much  as  they  have 
a  mind  to.  Nobody  criticises  them,  nobody  teaches 
them.  There  is  no  organ  school ;  there  are  no  masters 
who  are  held  in  such  respect  that  their  word  is  law. 
There  are  admirable  men  presiding  at  the  organ,  few 
and  far  between ;  but,  intermediately,  we  are  overrun 
with  a  vast  number  of  persons  who  play  without  reason, 
without  heart,  without  soul,  and  with  no  sort  of  relig- 
ious foundation.  The  only  thing  they  think  of  is  that 
they  have  to  play  so  many  pieces  and  at  such  points  in 
the  service,  for  that  is  the  way  the  thing  is  arranged. 
And  so  they  play ;  and  this  magnificent  instrument, 
that  has  in  it  sucli  power,  such  impassioned  eloquence, 
such  soul-stirring  influences,  is  too  often  neglected  and 
abused  in  the  hands  of  miserable  musical  miscreants. 

First  come  mere  musicians.  They  play  for  science, 
for  reputation,  and  that  is  all.  They  think  no  more 
about  it.  That  would  be  as  if  the  minister  were  think- 
ing of  grammar  and  rhetoric  and  personal  popularity, 
and  nothing  else.  For  preaching  is  simply  a  means  to 
an  end,  and  the  sermon  is  a  mere  tool,  an  instrument, 
and  the  preacher  but  a  servant.  God's  work  is  the 
thing  to  be  done.  I  care  not  if  the  player  be  Beetho- 
ven and  the  organ  be  the  most  magnificent  that  ever 
was  constructed;  they  are  both  servants,  and  their  glory 
is  subordination.  They  are  to  serve  God  in  the 
thoughts,  the  feelings,  the  fancies,  and  the  affections  of 
his  poor  little  children,  of  his  servants,  of  all  that  are 


RELATIONS  OF  MUSIC  TO  WORSHIP.  125 

in  the  congregation.  How  many  are  inspired  with 
any  such  conception  as  this  ?  And  here  come  in  the 
musical  monkeys,  dancing  on  their  organ,  playing  up 
and  playing  down,  rattling  all  sorts  of  waltzes,  with  a 
long  leg  stretched  out  here  and  there  to  make  it  sound 
like  Sunday  music. 

TRUE  ORGAN  MUSIC. 

This  leads  me  to  speak  a  word  in  reference  to  the 
proper  music  for  the  organ.  There  need  be  no  recourse 
to  any  other  than  ecclesiastical  music,  because  the 
treasury  of  organ  music  is  very  rich.  There  has  been 
a  line  of  masters  for  four  or  -five  hundred  years,  who 
have  been  contributing  to  the  riches  of  the  world 
in  the  music  adapted  to  this  noblest  of  all  instruments. 
There  are  yet  a  great  many  contributors  to  it.  No 
man  need  lack  pi-eludes,  no  man  need  lack  afterpieces, 
or  even  interludes.  Not  only  themes,  but  methods  of 
treatment,  abound.  The  world  is  rich  in  them  for  every 
young  musician.  Still,  there  is  no  objection  to  the  in- 
troduction into  the  church  services  of  much  of  that 
w^hich  is  called  secular  music,  provided  it  be,  in  its 
nature,  devotion-breathing.  There  is  very  little  that 
Von  Weber  ever  wrote  that  is  not  fit,  in  its  nature 
and  spirit,  for  the  church.  Much  of  Mendelssohn's 
music,  although  written  for  secular  occasions,  is  also 
spiritual.  And  I  think  you  could  find  nothing  in 
Beethoven,  from  beginning  to  end,  that  would  not  befit 
the  church,  if  it  were  re-adapted.  So  with  much  of 
Mozart's  music,  some  of  Rossini's,  and  many  others. 

But  there  is  a  great  deal  of  music  that  is  not  simply 
gay,  it  is  frisky.    It  is  even  frivolous.    The  introduc  - 


126 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


tion  of  such  music  into  church,  just  because  it  happens 
to  be  in  vogue  ;  the  trick  of  beginning  with  a  broad 
musical  opening  and  then  letting  people  hear,  tinklijig 
and  trickling  along  down,  some  air  from  an  opera,  — 
just  a  little  of  it,  to  tickle  the  fancy,  —  all  covered 
up,  as  they  imagine,  by  the  bass  or  by  the  other  parts ; 
the  foolery  of  playing  in  the  house  of  God  the  waltzes 
that  the  young  folks  danced  to,  perhaps,  but  a  night  or 
two  ago,  or  the  things  which  they  have  heard  in  opera 
during  the  week,  or  any  other  fashionable  music  of 
the  day,  —  this  is  a  desecration ;  it  is  dishonoring  a 
man's  own  profession ;  it  is  dishonoring  the  house  of 
God,  and  a  minister  ought  to  be  able  to  know  it  and 
to  stop  it.  One  of  the  miseries  of  a  ministry  un- 
educated in  music  is,  that  ministers  frequently  do 
not  know  enough  to  discern  when  the  music  is  good 
and  when  it  is  bad.  They  do  not  know  enough  to  be 
the  bishop  of  the  organ  and  the  organist,  as  well  as  of 
the  congregation. 

When,  in  addition  to  that  library  of  Lowell  Mason's, 
which  I  understand  has  been  presented  to  your  library, 

—  and  a  very  noble  musical  library  it  is  for  America, 

—  when  you  shall  have  a  lectureship  founded  upon 
it,  so  that  you  shall  annually  hear  lectures  upon  music, 
and  be  properly  drilled  in  it,  then,  I  believe,  there  will 
come  out  from  this  a  generation  of  men  who  will  un- 
derstand what  music  was  meant  for,  whether  in  the 
choir,  in  the  organ,  in  the  family,  or  in  the  lecture-room. 

THE  CHOIR. 

This  leads  me  to  speak  of  the  choir  as  an  assistant 
in  music.    The  first  question  that  naturally  comes  up 


DELATIONS  OF  MUSIC  TO  WORSHIP.  127 

is,  "Is  it  best  to  have  a  choir,  or  congregational 
singing  ?  "  My  reply  is,  It  is  best  to  have  a  choir 
and  congregational  singing,  —  both  !  When  Mr.  Zundel 
once  went  to  play  at  a  little  church,  he  had  the  whole 
matter  put  into  his  hands,  and  was  requested  to  de- 
velop congregational  singing.  After  a  few  months,  I 
asked  him  how  he  was  getting  along.  "  Oh,"  :x^A  he, 
"  there  is  one  element  necessary  to  congregational  sing- 
ing, and  that  is  that  you  should  have  a  congregation. 
There  are  not  so  many  persons  in  the  pews  as  I 
have  up  in  my  choir,  and  so  you  cannot  have  con- 
gregational singing."  Now,  where  that  is  the  case,  if 
you  are  to  have  any  singing  at  all,  you  must  have  it  in 
the  choir. 

Then,  there  is  a  class  of  music  that  may  be  very 
edifying,  and  yet  beyond  the  reach  of  the  congrega- 
tion ;  though  I  have  great  faith  in  the  capacity  of  a 
congregation  to  learn  singing.  The  choir  may  edify  the 
congregation  with  music,  certainly  on  special  occasions. 
Then,  in  the  next  place,  a  choir  becomes  a  kind  of  mul- 
tiplex leader.  It  takes  its  time  and  movement  from 
the  director  or  the  organist,  and  gives  them  out  vocally, 
and  the  whole  congregation  tend  to  follow  it.  So  the 
choir  acts  as  a  leader. 

I  know  it  is  often  said  that  there  is  always  a  quarrel 
in  the  choir,  and  always  trouble.  Well,  there  is  always 
a  quarrel  somewhere  in  the  world.  Sometimes  it  is  be- 
tween the  pulpit  and  the  pews,  sometimes  it  is  in  the 
pews,  or  between  them,  sometimes  it  is  in  the  choir. 
It  flies  about  from  one  place  to  another.  There  is  al- 
ways more  or  less  of  a  disturbance  going  on,  but  there 
does  not  need  to  be  any  quarrel  in  the  choir,  if  you 


128 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


will  only  do  one  thing,  —  infuse  into  the  heart  of  the 
minister,  and  get  hiin  to  infuse  into  the  heart  of  the 
congregation,  and  get  the  choir  itself  to  understand, 
that  musical  service  is  religious  service. 

Lowell  Mason  used  always  to  open  his  choir-meet- 
ings with  prayer,  and  to  talk  to  the  young  men  and 
the  young  women  who  were  with  him,  as  though  they 
had  come  to  prepare  themselves  to  take  part  in  render- 
ing the  service  of  God  in  the  sanctuary.  And  he  so 
impressed  them  with  this  thought,  he  made  them  so 
feel  it,  that  there  was  never  any  trouble  in  his  choir ; 
religion  crowded  it  out.  There  have  been  in  my  own 
choir  little  "  tiffs,"  occasionally,  such  as  all  of  you  have 
in  your  families,  but  there  never  has  been  a  quarrel  or 
a  serious  difficulty.  So  far  from  that,  I  always  expect 
that  tlie  persons  who  come  into  my  choir  will,  in  the 
course  of  a  year,  come  also  into  the  church.  The  feel- 
ing of  the  choir  is  a  ripening  feeling,  a  religious  feeling, 
and  almost  every  member,  if  not  so  in  the  beginning, 
eventually  becomes  a  communicant  at  the  table  of  the 
Lord.  Where  this  is  the  case,  when  choirs  are  leavened 
with  religion  and  made  to  feel  that  their  work  is  relig- 
ious work,  there  is  no  more  danger  of  their  quarreling, 
while  thus  consciously  serving  God,  than  there  is  of 
deacons  and  elders  quarreling  while  performing  the  ser- 
vice of  the  Lord  in  his  house. 

CONGREGATIONAL  SINGING. 

Now,  gentlemen,  I  am  a  fanatic  about  congregational 
singing,  and  I  should  be  glad  to  make  you  enthusiasts, — 
as  near  as  that  to  fanaticism.  I  hold  that  a  man  ought 
always  to  be  an  enthusiast,  and  that  no  man  is  a  good 


RELAnONS  OF  MUSIC  TO  WORSHIP. 


129 


one  who  has  not  the  capacity  of  being  fanatical  in 
places  and  on  occasions.  Tlie  whole  church  ought  to 
sing,  because  the  whole  church  ought  to  worship,  and 
there  is  no  other  worship  provided  in  our  churches  but 
this.  To  listen  to  the  prayer  of  him  that  is  most  gifted 
is  certainly  a  help,  and  a  long  way  toward  worshiping  ; 
but,  after  all,  no  man  worships  in  spirit  and  in  truth 
who  does  not  take  a  voluntary  and  personal  part,  such 
as  is  necessary  in  singing.  I  do  not  believe  it  is  possi- 
ble for  a  person  to  sing  our  hymns  and  not  worship. 
I  will  read  you  a  single  hymn.  I  would  like  to  see 
the  man  that  could  sing  this  hymn  and  not  feel  that 
he  had  worshiped.  I  will  call  your  attention  to 
another  thing.  A  want  of  proper  culture  has  permitted 
such  irreverence  to  grow  up,  that,  in  the  singing  or  the 
reading  of  such  a  hymn  as  this,  one  will  be  tucking 
his  hat  under  the  seat,  or  fixing  his  cane,  or  placing 
his  umbrella  in  the  corner ;  or  the  mother  will  be  ar- 
ranging the  neglected  curls  or  pulling  at  the  collar  of 
her  little  one  ;  or  the  sexton  will  be  running  around  and 
whispering  to  this  or  that  deacon  to  know  whether  he 
had  better  open  this  window  a  little  more  or  shut  that 
one  a  little  more.  This  is  all  wrong.  Hymns  are  wor- 
ship, and  should  be  respected  as  such. 

This  hymn  is  one  of  the  closest,  most  endearing, 
clinging,  yearning  prayers  to  Christ :  — 

**  Thou,  0  my  Jesus,  thou  didst  me 
Upon  the  cross  embrace  ; 
For  me  didst  bear  the  nails  and  spear, 
And  manifold  disgrace, 

**  And  griefs  and  torments  numberless, 
And  sweats  of  agony,  — 
6* 


130 


LECTURES  ON  fREACHlNa. 


Yea,  death  itself,  and  all  for  one 
Who  was  thine  enemy. 

*'  Then  why,  0  blessed  Jesus  Christ, 
Should  I  not  love  thee  well  ? 
Not  for  the  hope  of  winning  heaven, 
Nor  of  escaping  hell ; 

"  Not  with  the  hope  of  gaining  aught, 
Nor  seeking  a  reward  ; 
But  as  thyself  hast  loved  me, 
0  ever-loving  Lord  ! 

**  E'en  so  I  love  thee,  and  will  love. 
And  in  thy  praise  will  sing  ; 
Solely  because  thou  art  my  God, 
And  my  eternal  King." 

Now,  if  you  can  sing  that,  and  not  cry,  —  I  am  sorry 
for  your  eyes. 

PLYMOUTH  CHURCH. 

People  often  wonder  why  folks  come  to  Plymouth 
Church  so  much.  I  will  tell  you ;  it  is  the  singing 
that  brings  them  there.  It  is  the  atmosphere  there 
is  in  the  loving,  cheerful,  hopeful  courage  of  that 
congregation  in  the  singing.  They  get  a  sermon  too, 
but  then  it  is  more  the  singing,  I  think,  that  accounts 
for  the  throng.  It  comforts  their  souls.  I  have  seen 
men  come  into  that  congregation,  —  and  there  are 
at  least  twenty-five  hundred  out  of  the  twenty- 
seven  hundred  there  that  sing,  —  I  have  seen  them 
come  into  that  congregation  exactly  as  they  would 
go  to  Barnum's ;  because,  you  know,  it  is  the  trick  of 
the  papers  to  represent  it  as  a  kind  of  theatre,  or 
what-not.  They  would  sit  down  and  look  all  around, 
watching  to  see  what  was  going  to  be  done  next. 


RELATIONS  OF  MUSIC  TO  WORSHIP.  131 

When  I  arose,  they  would  stare  as  though  they  really 
thought  I  was  going  to  throw  a  somersault.  I  would 
give  out  a  hymn,  and  they  would  still  be  watching  for 
something  that  had  not  come  yet,  but  was  coming. 
The  organ  would  giVe  out  the  tune,  and  the  congregation 
begin  to  sing.  These  men  would  rise,  and  stand  in  their 
places,  and  when  the  great  volume  of  sound,  like  the 
voice  of  many  waters,  would  break  on  them,  I  have 
seen  them  first,  in  a  kind  of  bewilderment,  looking  all 
around,  up  in  the  galleries,  on  a  sea  of  books  opened, 
and  everybody  busy  singing.  And  when  they  heard  such 
a  sound  as  there  was  rolling  down  upon  them,  or  roll- 
ing up  towards  God,  I  have  seen  them  stand,  and,  by 
the  second  verse,  away  would  go  the  tears  down  their 
cheeks.  The  hymn  fairly  overcame  them.  Better  than 
a  sermon,  better  than  any  exhortation,  —  why  should  it 
not  affect  them  thus  ? 

« 

HOW  TO  PROMOTE  GENERAL  SINGING. 

Now,  in  order  to  promote  congregational  singing,  you 
must  be  in  earnest  about  it.  Among  the  things  that 
you  say  to  yourself  must  be  this :  I  will  give  my 
whole  strength,  first  to  preaching  to  these  people ;  next, 
to  their  social  development,  by  visiting  them  man  by 
man ;  and  always  to  the  cultivation  of  devotion  and  wor- 
ship among  them  by  sacred  song."  How  shall  it  be 
done  ?  Well,  preach  about  it  often.  Secure  the  best 
leadership  you  can ;  encourage  your  people  to  sing  in 
the  family,  to  sing  in  all  social  meetings  ;  let  them  sing 
the  same  hymns  often  aud  everywhere.  That  is  to  say, 
when  men  come  into  church  to  sing  hymns,  they  do 
not  want  to  sing  many  of  the  church  hymns  now  used, 


132 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


—  there  is  very  little  perfume  in  them.  They  may  be 
very  beautiful,  but  they  are  like  the  japonica,  which  is 
exquisite  in  form  and  color,  but  has  no  fragrance. 
Now,  hymns  that  do  people  good  may  not  be  beautiful 
in  construction,  and  yet  they  may  be  full  of  the  asso- 
ciations and  experiences  of  the  heart.  The  tunes  that 
the  man  heard  as  a  child,  around  the  family  altar,  the 
hymns  that  were  sung  on  Sabbath  evenings  at  home, 
and  that  carry  with  them  a  part  of  his  own  past  his- 
tory, that  have  treasured  up  in  them  sacred  memorials 
of  the  best  part  of  his  life,  —  those  hymns,  and  the 
hymns  tliat  are  sung  in  the  Sunday-schools,  should  be 
sung  in  church.  There  ought  to  be  but  one  book  in 
every  congregation.  Or,  if  there  be  two,  the  second 
should  be  but  a  part  of  the  loaf  of  the  first  one  broken 
off,  so  that  the  same  thing  should  be  sung  at  home,  in 
the  lecture-room,  in  the  Sunday-school,  and  in  the 
great  congregation.  Then,  you  will  have  hymns  that 
come  to  people,  touching  them  all  around  ;  living  hymns, 
filled  with  their  own  life.  Sing  much  at  home,  en- 
courage singing  in  the  day  schools,  iA  the  household, 
in  the  Sunday-school,  in  the  lecture-room.  Sing  on 
your  way  rejoicing ;  make  everybody  sing  that  you  can, 
and  keep  them  singing. 

Then,  there  will  be  many  hesitations  and  many  re- 
trocessions. That  is  the  place  for  your  efforts.  When- 
ever things  do  not  go  right,  draw  up  the  buckle  one 
hole  more  and  go  at  them  again,  and  that  not  only  in 
music,  but  in  everything  else.  You  were  put  into  a 
church,  not  to  be  overcome,  but  to  conquer,  to  carry 
your  own  way,  —  that  is,  when  your  way  and  God's 
ways  are  consentaneous.     The  difficulties  ought  to  be 


KELATIONS  OF  MUSIC  TO  WORSHIP. 


133 


nothing  but  whetstones  to  a  man,  making  him  sharper 
and  sharper. 

FELLOWSHIP  AND  SONG  HELP  EACH  OTHER. 

Let  me  say  one  thing  more:  You  never  will  have 
congregational  singing  as  long  as  you  have  no  con- 
gregational feeling.  Congregational  singing  will  cer- 
tainly break  down  the  stiffness,  the  formality,  and  the 
exclusive  habits  of  your  people,  or  else  the  stiffness, 
and  the  coldness,  and  the  exclusive  habits  of  your  peo- 
ple will  prevent  or  destroy  congregational  singing. 
You  cannot  sing  throughout  the  church,  and  not  de- 
velop, subtly,  that  element  of  fellowship  that  gives 
elasticity  and  freedom  in  social  intercourse.  Now, 
a  congregation  that  have  been  trained  to  go  into 
church  and  sit  down  and  not  look  at  one  another, 
to  go  home  and  not  speak  to  one  another,  I  don't 
believe  can  be  trained  to  cons^rec^ational  sino-ing^,  un- 
less  by  an  extraordinary  pressure  and  process.  Fel- 
lowship and  song  are  but  different  developments  of  the 
same  spirit ;  and  therefore,  where  you  have  quarrels 
unreconciled  and  persons  who  do  not  care  for  each 
other,  people  sitting  apart  separately,  you  never  will 
make  them  sing  together,  they  never  will  pray  together, 
they  never  will  mingle  in  any  way.  And,  mark  my 
word,  if  you  wish  to  make  congregational  singing  easy, 
everything  that  you  do  to  bring  people  together  socially, 
genially,  in  Christian  syinpathy,  will  facilitate  it.  And 
if  you  wish  to  bring  people  together  genially  and 
socially,  teach  them  to  sing,  and  that  will  facilitate 
your  purpose.  Thus  singing  and  sociality  act  and  re- 
act upon  each  other,  in  a  mutual  relation  of  cause  and 
efJect. 


134 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


THE  CHOICE  OF  HYMNS. 

I  may  speak  a  word  on  the  subject  of  the  selection 
of  hymns  for  use  in  church  and  in  the  lecture-room. 
On  what  principle  should  we  choose  ?  or  is  there  any 
principle  which  should  dictate  the  selection  of  hymns  ? 
None  that  does  not  admit  of  infinite  variations.  But 
there  are  certain  general  principles.  For  example,  1  have 
always  pursued  what  may  be  called  a  psychological 
plan,  and  have  selected  hymns  sometimes  because  they 
were  automatic  ;  they  volunteered  themselves,  and  I 
knew  that  under  such  circumstances  there  was  a  reason 
for  such  hymns,  there  was  something  in  the  air  that 
would  make  them  acceptable,  even  though  I  did  not 
know  why.  I  take  all  such  intimations  as  that ;  but 
still  there  is  a  general  plan,  and  it  is  this  :  If  I  can 
bring  the  congregation,  before  I  come  personally  to 
handle  them,  into  a  triumphant,  jubilant  state,  a  cheer- 
ful, hopeful,  genial  state,  my  work  among  them  will  be 
made  easier  by  one  half  than  if  they  were  in  a  very 
depressed,  sad  state. 

I  believe  that  confession,  and  self-condemnation,  and 
all  that,  should  be  like  the  whippings  we  give  to 
our  children,  —  sharp  and  quick,  and  soon  over.  I  do 
not  believe  in  yokes  and  cloaks  and  long-continued 
burdens  of  depression.  I  believe  that  it  is  a  malarial 
poison  to  the  soul  for  a  man  to  go  long  bowed  down  with 
a  sense  of  sinfulness,  and  that  it  is  a  vicious  method  of 
teaching  that  brings  people  into  such  a  state  of  mind. 
It  is  remedial,  and  therefore  medicinal ;  and  to  give  a 
man  medicine  all  the  time  is  bad  for  him.  The  mind 
in  the  natural  condition  is  hopeful,  cheerful,  trusting, 


RELATIONS  OF  MUSIC  TO  WORSHIP.  135 

loving.  That  is  the  relation  which  we  sustai  i  to  God. 
We  are  sons.  "  Henceforth  I  call  you  not  servants, 
but  friends.  The  servant  knoweth  not  what  his  Lord 
doeth.  I  admit  you  to  that  intimate  relation  by  wliich 
I  counsel  with  you  and  you  with  me.  You  know  all 
the  secrets  of  the  household ;  you  are  my  children." 
And  it  is  a  shame  for  the  children  of  God  to  go  always 
with  downcast  heads.  When  the  storm  comes,  then 
the  grass  and  the  flowers  and  everything  bow  down 
with  the  weight ;  but  when  the  sun  comes  out  again, 
they  shake  off  the  raindrops  and  lift  themselves  up, 
and  are  stronger  by  reason  of  the  storm.  And  so  it 
should  be  with  Christian  men. 

I  think,  therefore,  if  you  begin  with  a  doleful  hymn, 
supposing  that  you  are  going  to  get  your  people  down, 
you  will  get  them  down  so  low  that  you  won't  get  them 
up  again.  You  will  mire  them.  Therefore  all  those 
hymns  of  depression  and  of  sadness  are  to  be  prescribed 
as  a  physician  prescribes  medicine,  —  in  broken  doses, 
and,  I  think,  mostly  homoeopathic  at  that.  On  the 
other  hand,  the  true  Christian  state  is  one  of  a  holy 
hilarity,  a  holy  courage,  a  holy  familiarity  with  God.  It 
is  the  soul  lifting  itself  into  its  natural,  native  air,  not 
afraid  to  look  at  God  with  the  veil,  Christ,  between ;  able 
now  to  see  him  face  to  face,  and  yet  live.  Therefore  I 
strike  for  that  feeling.  I  give  out  hymns  on  the  prin- 
ciple of  producing  a  certain  feeling  that  I  want  to  use. 

When,  therefore,  I  open  Sunday  service,  it  is  almost 
always  with  something  cheerful,  something  hopeful ; 
something  that  celebrates  the  Sabbath  morning  and  its 
blessed  associations  ;  the  triumph  of  God  ;  the  triumph 
of  the  church  ;  exultant  praise.    These  are  very  whole- 


136 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


some  elements  to  begin  with.  Then,  as  to  the  other 
hymns.  It  is  a  great  deal  better  for  you  not  to  give 
out  your  sermon  in  your  hymn,  or  to  follow  your  ser- 
mon in  your  hymn,  unless  it  be  one  of  those  rare 
hymns  which  will  distill  your  sermon,  and  give  it 
to  them  in  another  form.  If,  for  instance,  I  wish  to 
rebuke  my  congregation  in  the  sermon  for  anything,  I 
say  to  myself,  "  Now,  if  I  give  them  a  monitory  hymn, 
and  a  monitory  chapter,  and  then  a  scourging  sermon, 
I  shall  overdo  the  whole  thing.  It  will  be  without 
lights  and  shadows,  and  it  will  therefore  be  without 
elasticity,  without  rebound  ;  it  is  not  wise.  I  will  do 
this  rather.  The  state  of  mind  in  which  a  person  takes 
rebuke  and  profits  by  it,  is  a  state  of  comfort  and  of 
upliftedness,  and  I  will  raise  them  to  that  if  I  can. 
I  will  bring  them  up  into  true  Christian  states  of  mind 
by  my  hymns  and  my  prayer ;  and  when  I  get  them 
into  that  state,  I  can  say  anything  to  them  that  ought 
to  be  said  to  anybody."  So  I  will  sing  them  up  and 
pray  them  up,  and  then  I  will  take  them  down  a  little. 
And  not  only  will  they  bear  it,  but  they  will  digest  it. 
The  rebuke  will  not  be  powerless  ;  it  will  work  out  in 
their  after  lives. 

The  idea,  therefore,  that  I  wish  to  leave  in  your  minds, 
is  simply  this,  —  that  a  man  may  be  apparently  work- 
ing with  his  hymns  in  a  different  direction  from  his 
sermon,  and  yet  really  co-operating  with  it.  If  you 
want  to  bring  any  subject  before  the  congregation,  it 
is  sometimes  well  to  introduce  it  by  some  statement 
which,  while  very  different  from  the  subject  itself,  yet 
will  be  very  lit  for  them  to  hear,  and  to  be  in  sym- 
pathy with  ;  and  hymns  are  the  instruments  by  which 


RELATIONS  OF  MUSIC  TO  WORSHIP. 


137 


you  may  best  do  this.  This  will  require  practice  ;  and 
it  will  come  to  every  man  that  gets  the  idea  and  at- 
tempts to  put  it  in  practice.  He  will  at  first,  perhaps, 
not  succeed  well ;  but  in  time  he  will  grow  skillful  in 
such  administration  of  hymns. 

PRAYER-MEETING  MUSIC. 

It  only  remains  that  I  should  say  a  word  as  to  sing- 
ing in  prayer-meeting.  I  meant  to  have  had  some  one 
present,  who,  with  facile  touch  and  in  sympathy  with 
me,  should  give  out  some  hymns  and  give  specimens 
of  dealing  with  an  audience,  to  show  how  much  can 
be  actually  done  with  the  hymn-book.  For  I  feel  that 
with  a  Bible  and  a  hymn-book  a  man  has  a  whole 
library  ;  and  if  he  knows  how  to  use  those  two  things, 
he  knows  enough  to  be  a  missionary,  or  to  be  a  min- 
ister anywhere,  so  far  as  mere  dealing  with  people  is 
concerned.  But  that  I  cannot  do  to-day.  Therefore  I 
have  only  to  say  in  a  few  cold  and  formal  words  what 
otherwise  I  could  have  rendered  in  a  more  lifelike 
form. 

In  speaking  of  the  prayer-meeting,  I  omitted  very 
much  that  I  should  have  said  on  the  subject  of  music. 
In  the  prayer-meeting,  music  ought  to  be  a  grand  sub- 
stratum. They  are  called  prayer-meetings,  but  tw. 
prayers  are  often  enough  for  a  meeting, — about  two 
prayers  to  six  hymns.  "  Why  ?  "  Because  out  of  every 
six  people  that  pray,  there  are  not  tw^o  that  can  pray  as 
a  hymn  can.  It  is  not  probable  that  you  will  find  one 
person  in  an  average  congregation  of  two  hundred  that 
can  express  so  admirably,  w^ith  such  subtle  lines,  the 
dealing  of  God  with  men,  as  Cowper  did.    It  is  not 


138 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


once  in  a  hundred  times  that  a  man  can  preach  so 
much  sound  gospel  in  verse  as  old  John  Newton  did. 
You  have  very  few  men  like  Wesley  and  Watts,  wlio 
are  the  two  wings  of  hymnody.  Those  two  men  soar 
as  few  can  soar.    We  might  say, 

**  Descend,  immortal  dove  ! 
Take  us  upon  thy  wings." 

When  these  men  are  invoked,  they  take  the  whole  con- 
gregation on  their  wings,  and  lift  them  up. 

Now,  in  singing,  be  familiar.  For  instance,  if  a 
prayer-meeting  is  opened  with  a  hymn,  that  clears 
away  the  cobwebs.  But  suppose  the  people  drawl 
it.  As  soon  as  they  get  through,  you  say,  Brethren, 
that  won't  do  ;  we  can't  get  along  with  that ;  let  us 
take  another  hymn,  and  see  what  we  can  make  of 
it.  Take  this  next  hymn,  so  and  so."  It  wakes  them 
all  up,  and  every  man  smiles,  and  they  go  at  the  next 
with  a  good  will.  By  that  time,  they  begin  to  know 
what  they  are  about.  Take  a  little  of  this  hymn,  or 
the  whole  of  that  hymn  ;  but  for  heaven's  sake,  gen- 
tlemen, don't  emasculate  hymns  in  order  to  meet  the 
wants  of  those  persons  in  the  congregation  who  think 
they  have  served  God  enough  when  they  come  once  a 
day  and  stay  half  an  hour  in  the  church,  and  then 
are  impatient  to  get  home  !  Of  those  who  want  short 
hymns  and  short  prayers,  you  will  never  make  a 
man  out  ''of  ten  thousand  fit  for  the  kingdom  of 
God.  We  want  religion  to  be  so  important,  so  earnest, 
that  men  shall  demand  broad,  deep  sermons,  and,  in 
order  to  have  them,  will  give  the  workmen  time. 
We  want  men  that  shall  drink  so  deep  of  devotion 


RELATIONS  OF  MUSIC  TO  WORSHIP. 


139 


that  they  will  need  a  deep  well.  Seven  or  eight  verses 
are  not  too  much,  if  they  are  the  right  kind  of  verses  ; 
and,  in  good  hymns,  two  verses  are  often  enough  when 
you  want  to  make  a  glancing  shot.  Or,  if  you  will,  take 
four  or  six.  Do  not  count.  Never  sing  by  arithmetic, 
but  make  a  business  of  it.  Sing  for  the  love  of  it. 
Your  prayer-meetings  are  real  work ;  and  the  man  that 
is  with  his  little  congregation,  molding  them,  inspiring 
them  with  a  common  feeling,  carrying  them  off  from 
the  shoals  where  he  knows  they  have  run  aground, 
with  the  instrument  of  prayer,  with  the  instrument  of 
singing  (which  is  but  anotlier  form  of  vocal  prayer), 
his  own  soul  filled  with  the  Holy  Ghost,  in  the  full 
fellowship  and  love  of  men,  —  w^hat  can  he  not  ac- 
complish under  such  circumstances  ? 

To  bring  the  inspiration  of  the  Holy  Ghost  on  living 
men,  from  the  days  of  Pentecost  down  to  this  hour,  is  a 
grand  and  noble  way  to  deal  with  them ;  and  ministers 
that  understand  their  function,  and  know  what  their 
powers  and  instruments  are,  ought  to  be  able  to  de- 
velop out  of  the  prayer-meeting  and  out  of  the  church 
an  influence  of  Divine  truth,  and  a  feeling  divinely 
inspired  in  the  human  soul,  that  shall  carry  men  far 
along  on  their  journey  god  ward.  And  among  the 
most  active,  subtle,  effective  instruments  which  the 
minister  has  to  work  with,  music,  studiously  and  skill- 
fully used,  in  the  household,  the  social  meeting,  the 
prayer-meeting,  and  the  church  service,  stands  eminent 
and  highly  blessed  of  God. 

QUESTIONS   AND  ANSWERS. 
Q.  What  do  you  think  of  the  Fulton  Street  prayer-meeting, 
—  of  its  receiving  requests  for  prayers  from  all  parts  of  the 
world  '( 


140 


LECTUKES  ON  PREACHING. 


Mr.  Beecher.  —  I  tliink  very  well  of  the  Fulton 
Street  prayer-meeting ;  and  I  have  no  objection  to 
their  receiving  requests  for  prayer  from  all  parts  of  the 
world. 

Q.  What  about  interludes,  as  they  are  commonly  employed 
now  ? 

Mr.  Beecher.  —  I  think  the  music  would  be  better 
without  them  than  with  them.  If  you  consider  an 
interlude  merely  as  a  pause  for  taking  breath,  I  think 
that  is  an  unworthy  use  for  the  organ  ;  and,  if  it  has 
any  justification  whatever,  it  is  in  this,  that  it  extends 
one  thought,  or  anticipates  another,  or  connects  the  two, 
between  two  stanzas.  There  have  been  books  of  in- 
terludes written,  which,  like  all  things  of  that  kind, 
are  helps,  and  not  substitutes. 

Q.  In  what  end  of  the  church  would  you  have  the  organ  ? 

Mr.  Beecher.  —  Either  end.  It  makes  very  little 
difference  where  you  put  the  instrument.  It  is  a  very 
great  help,  in  speaking  anywhere,  to  stand  encompassed 
by  the  people  ;  and  if  you  wish  to  throw  the  minister 
forward  from  the  rear  wall,  you  must  economize  the  room 
behind  him  by  placing  the  organ  and  choir  there. 
Then  the  minister  will  be  the  only  one  who  will  not 
see  them  ;  and  the  whole  congregation,  when  they  rise 
in  their  pews,  will  see  the  organ  and  the  choir,  and  go 
naturally  with  them.  If  the  leader  marks  time,  the 
whole  congregation,  without  any  disturbance,  can  easily 
follow  his  hand.  On  the  other  hand,  there  may  be 
occasions  in  which  you  are  required  to  put  the  organ 
at  the  other  end  of  the  church.  I  should  say,  place  it 
behind  the  minister,  if  I  were  to  choose.    But  some- 


RELATIONS  OF  MUSIC  TO  WORSHIP. 


141 


times  it  is  put  off.  on  one  side,  and  I  know  no  reason 
why  it  should  not  be.  Generally  the  organ  fills  the 
whole  church,  from  whatever  point  it  sounds. 

Q.  What  do  you  think  of  such  playing  of  organists  as  we 
sometimes  hear  when  the  congregation  is  going  out  after  a  solemn 
sermon  and  worship  ? 

Mr.  Beecher.  —  Such  playing  as  we  sometimes  hear 
in  our  churches  is,  I  think,  detestable.  To  use  the  organ 
as  a  mere  cover  of  noise,  under  any  circumstances  what- 
ever, is  a  defilement  and  an  abomination.  As  an  opposite 
instance,  —  at  the  close  of  the  sermon  on  a  communion 
Sabbath  morning,  I  invite  all  that  wish  to  commune  to 
remain.  A  great  many  go  out.  At  once  Mr.  Zundel 
takes  some  very  tender  and  loving  theme,  and  with  a 
sweet  combination  of  stops  it  fills  the  air.  Now,  those 
who  are  going  out  may  not  profit ;  but,  as  I  sit  in  my 
chair  and  shut  my  eyes,  it  comforts  me.  It  is  so  with 
others  all  through  the  congregation.  I  often  wonder 
that  people  go  out  so  long  as  the  organ  is  playing,  — 
and  yet  sometimes  I  have  wondered  that  they  stay  in 
when  they  hear  it. 

Q.  Would  you  make  use  of  an  instrument  at  a  social  prayer- 
meeting  ? 

Mr.  Beecher.  —  Yes  ;  I  would  have  a  piano  in  a  lec- 
ture-room, because  it  better  marks  the  time,  and  there 
the  time  needs  to  be  brought  up.  In  many  of  our 
Sunday-schools  we  have  organs,  but  the  children  are 
brought  up  to  time  by  the  staccato  voice  and  manner 
of  imperative  teachers. 

Q.  In  some  churches  we  find  many  hymns  sung  to  a  great 
variety  of  tunes.    What  do  you  think  of  that  ? 

Mr.  Beecher.  —  I  would  not  be  in  bondage  to  amj 


142 


LECTURES  ON  PKEACHING. 


practice.  There  are  some  liymiis  that  I  should  always 
want  sung  to  a  particular  tune,  —  "  Jesus,  lover  of  my 
soul,"  for  instance.  That  is  a  very  marked  hymn.  It 
is  one  of  the  praying  hymns.  There  are  a  thousand  of 
them,  but  tliis  is  one  of  the  exquisite  ones  ;  a  hymn 
that  I  should  love  to  hear  sung  if  I  were  dying.  And 
I  should  like  to  have  it  to  a  tune  that  was  married  to 
it,  and  sung  to  that  only.  But  then,  in  the  majority  of 
cases,  I  do  not  feel  the  least  objection  to  singing  a  hymn 
to  a  dozen  different  tunes.  That  is  to  say,  I  do  not 
believe  in  the  German  method.  I  think  that  originated 
in  the  feeling  that  the  common  people  were  so  uncul- 
tured that  they  could  not  carry  more  than  one  hymn  to 
one  tune,  which  should  be  as  simple  as  possible.  From 
that  source,  I  think,  comes  the  idea  that  in  congrega- 
tional singing  all  ought  to  sing  the  air  and  let  the  organ 
carry  the  harmony.  I  say  a  congregation  can  carry  all 
the  four  parts  just  as  well  as  the  choir  can. 

Q.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  do  not  people  that  cannot  read  learn  a 
hymn  more  easily  if  it  is  always  associated  with  the  same  tmie,  — 
children,  for  instance  ? 

Mr.  Beecher.  —  Very  likely  they  do.  That  may 
be  a  reason  why,  in  certain  congregations  and  in  cer- 
tain parts  of  the  country,  for  a  time  at  least,  the  wed- 
ding of  a  hymn  and  tune  should  be  without  divorce. 
But,  as  a  general  system,  applying  to  all  congregations, 
I  should  not  advise  it ;  I  would  only  apply  it  in  special 
cases. 

Q.  Would  you  employ  chanting  in  the  services  ? 

Mr.  Beecher.  —  I  would,  and  I  would  employ  re- 
sponsive reading.     I  am  going  to,  —  and  have  been 


RELATIONS  OF  MUSIC  TO  WORSHIP.  143 

going  to  for  ten  years  in  my  church,  —  but  I  have  n't 
got  to  it  yet. 

Q.  Would  you  have  the  ordinary  Sabbath-school  music  dis- 
carded from  church  music  ? 

Mr.  Beecher.  —  I  would  make  no  distinction.  I 
would  discard  a  good  deal  of  church  music.  Some 
hymn-tunes  have  crept  into  our  books  lately,  which  a 
man  might  sing  to  all  eternity,  and  then,  if  he  waited 
one  minute,  he  would  forget  what  they  were,  so  thin 
and  so  miserable  are  they  I  A  great  many  Sunday- 
school  tunes  are  like  the  Sunday-school  hymns,  —  they 
are  sentimentalism  gone  drunk.  I  feel  a  righteous  in- 
dignation when  I  think  of  the  stalwart  stanzas  of  old 
Watts,  and  of  John  and  Charles  Wesley,  and  of  Dod- 
dridge, of  Montgomery's  hymns,  of  Barton's  hymns,  and 
of  many  others  of  modern  date,  —  noble  recitations  of 
the  history  of  Christ  and  of  the  gospel,  most  magnifi- 
cent delineations  of  the  other  life  and  of  all  the  experi- 
ences of  a  Christian,  —  and  see  our  children  brought  up 
on  such  miserable  trash  and  garbage  as  they  too  often 
are  in  our  Sunday-schools  !  It  is  a  sin  and  a  shame  to 
bring  them  up  in  that  way.  I  know  that  children  are 
old  enough  at  the  age  of  five  years  to  feel  the  grandeur 
of  some  of  those  old  hymns.  And  they  are  being 
cheated  out  of  them. 

Now,  I  do  not  say  that  all  the  Sunday-school  hymns 
are  to  be  rejected ;  but  we  are  overrun  with  them,  and 
there  ought  to  be  a  winnowing  that  should  separate  the 
vast  amount  of  chaft'  from  the  handful  of  wheat.  A 
good  deal  of  other  music  is  subject,  I  think,  to  the  same 
criticism.  There  is  much  that  it  will  be  well  to  pre- 
serve, but  much  more  that  ought  to  be  burned. 


144 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


Q.  What  is  your  idea  of  a  praise-meeting  ? 

Mr.  Beech er.  —  A  praise-meeting  I  understand  to 
be  one  in  which  the  whole  congregation  so  associate  to- 
gether, that  whatever  they  say  is  an  argument  of  praise 
and  tlianksgiving.  The  chord  is,  Give  thanks  !  Witli 
all  prayer,  with  thanksgiving,"  says  the  Apostle.  You 
will  be  struck,  if  you  look  through  your  concordance  of 
the  New  Testament,  to  see  how  much  thanksgiving  is 
insisted  upon.  Now,  by  thanksgiving  I  do  not  under- 
stand a  cold  thank  you."  I  understand  by  it  an  exult- 
ant state  of  mind,  —  cheerful,  hopeful,  loving,  yearning, 
upspringing,  all  running  in  the  direction  of  joy  and 
gratitude  and  praise.  A  praise-meeting  is  one  that  con- 
fines itself  to  that,  and  gives  utterance  to  it,  in  prayer, 
in  conversation,  and  in  hymns.  You  might  also  have 
confessional  meetings ;  though  these,  I  think,  should  be 
short  and  very  rare.  It  is  better  to  have  mixed  meet- 
ings for  such  purposes,  that  one  thing  may  supplement 
another.    But  praise  is  always  wholesome. 

Q.  Would  you  always  read  the  hymn  before  singing  ? 

Mr.  Beecher.  —  No,  I  would  not,  —  I  do  not  always, 
I  mean.  I  would  ;  but  I  never  do  read  a  hymn,  first, 
when  I  do  not  feel  like  it,  and,  secondly,  when  I  am 
pressed  for  time  and  must  abbreviate  the  services.  I 
often  omit  the  reading  of  hymns,  —  and  am  very  much 
blamed  for  it. 

Q.  Don't  you  think  that  the  sermon  is  a  part  of  worship  a3 
much  as  singing  1 

Mr.  Beecher.  —  Well,  if  you  extend  the  term  "  wor- 
ship "  so  as  to  mean  by  it  anything  that  lias  relation  to 
the  divine  life,  —  yes.    But  we  discriminate  between 


DELATIONS  OF  MUSIC  TO  WORSHIP.  145 

worship  as  an  emotion,  and  as  the  indoctrination  and 
instruction  upon  which  a  sermon  is  based.  Many 
sermons  are  worship,  as  many  sermons  are  poetry. 
Some  sermons  are  dramas,  some  poems,  some  descrip- 
tions ;  but,  after  all,  taking  it  comprehensively  in  a 
pastor's  life,  we  consider  the  sermon  as  the  element  of 
instruction. 

Q.  Ought  not  all  the  elements  of  our  nature  to  enter  into 
worship  ?  And  does  not  the  sermon  represent  the  intellectual 
nature  ? 

Mr.  Beecher.  —  The  sermon  represents  the  intel- 
lectual nature.  That  is  the  foundation  from  which 
you  start.  Now,  I  do  not  think  that  the  hymn  does, 
nor  the  prayer.  They  commence  at  once  with  feeling 
as  something  already  generated,  and,  as  I  have  just 
said,  represent  and  develop  the  emotional  element  of 
worship. 


VI. 


DEVELOPMENT  OF  SOCIAL  ELEMENTS.  ' 

PUEPOSE,  this  afternoon,  to  speak  upon 
some  of  the  social  forces  that  are  to  be 
developed  and  employed  in  church  life  and 
activity. 

PASTORAL  VISITING. 

This  brings  me  naturally,  first,  to  speak  upon  the 
matter  of  pastoral  visitation  more  directly  than  I  did 
last  year,  when  I  touched  it  only  as  collateral  to  some- 
thing else.  Many  reasons  which  once  made  pastoral 
visitations  important  no  longer  exist.  There  was  a 
time  when  there  w^ere  no  schools,  few  books,  no  papers, 
little  discussion,  and  when  popular  intelligence  was 
very  low;  when  even  the  ministers,  the  main  body  of 
them,  were  not  as  w^ell  instructed  in  religious  things  as 
the  average  citizens  now  are  ;  when  religious  truth,  if 
conveyed  at  all,  must  be  conveyed  by  the  professional 
teachers  of  religion.  Under  such  circumstances,  it 
behooved  the  pastor  to  go  from  house  to  house,  in- 
doctrinating and  catechising  the  children.  There  were 
peculiar  reasons,  also,  when  men  believed  that  the 
ordinances  w^ere  special  channels  of  grace  which  the 


DEVELOPMENT  OF  SOCIAL  ELEMENTS.  147 

ministry  alone  possessed  and  controlled,  why  the  ad- 
ministrators of  those  ordinances  should  be  among  their 
people,  not  only  in  sickness  and  in  death,  but  also  in 
various  familiar  relations  in  life.  Our  churches  —  I 
mean  the  non-hierarchical  churches  —  have  parted  with 
these  beliefs  ;  and  all  those  reasons  that  inhered  in  the 
superiority  of  the  ministry  over  the  great  brotherhood 
have  passed  away. 

MODERN  REASONS  FOR  IT. 

But  there  are  other  reasons  which  justify  the  con- 
tinuance of  an  assiduous  visitation  on  the  part  of 
pastors.  In  the  first  place,  because  a  man  wants,  for 
his  own  sake,  to  know  intimately  those  to  whom  he 
is  to  preach.  Paul  said,  "  Ye  are  our  epistles,  known 
and  read  of  all  men."  He  might  have  said,  "  Ye  are 
our  texts,"  for  he  derived  much,  especially  of  the  argu- 
mentative portions  of  his  epistles,  from  the  known 
feelings,  prejudices,  beliefs,  or  non-beliefs  of  those  peo- 
ple to  whom  he  came ;  so  much  so  that,  upon  a  close 
reading,  one  almost  thinks  he  can  see  the  color  of  the 
churches  in  the  tenor  of  the  Pauline  epistles. 

In  our  day,  the  style  of  theology  has  changed.  You 
will  be  compelled  to  change  with  it.  There  are  great 
causes  at  work,  quite  independent  of  mere  individual 
volition.  Men  tell  us  we  must  go  back  again  and  pursue 
the  old  sound  doctrinal  systems ;  but  you  cannot  get 
back.  The  sun  and  the  moon  and  the  stars  are  against 
you.  There  is  a  movement,  there  is  an  aerial  gulf- 
stream,  and  you  are  swept  away  from  that  which  was 
appropriate  to  the  anterior  state.  That  which  fitted 
the  condition  of  men  earlier  than  our  time  does  not  fit 


148 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


our  time,  and  has  been,  or  is  being,  sloughed  off. 
Preaching  has  become  a  great  deal  more  natural  and 
less  artificial.  It  has  more  of  life-form  and  life-force,- 
and  less  of  the  abstract  and  metaphysical.  Not  that  it 
will  ever  disavow  metaphysics  or  abstractions,  not  that 
it  will  ever  be  concrete,  absolutely,  —  that  is  not  pos- 
sible, —  but  it  has  largely  assumed  a  form  in  which 
personal  elements  and  personal  sympathies  mingle. 

Now,  this  style  of  preaching,  above  all  others,  de- 
mands that  one  should  reinvigorate  himself  by  contact 
with  life  and  with  men.  You  will  find  that,  in  dealing 
with  all  those  themes  which  go  to  the  source  of  motive, 
which  touch  sympathy,  which  affect  the  hearts  of  men, 
you  will  be  very  superficial,  you  will  be  very  poor  in 
power,  unless  you  are  intimately  mixed  up  with  the 
life  of  those  to  whom  you  preach,  and  to  whom  you 
bring  the  gospel.  A  man  may,  for  instance,  have  his 
pastorate  in  a  country  village,  and,  mingling  with  his 
people,  he  may  write  a  series  of  discourses,  which,  if  he 
were  elected  pastor  of  Yale  College,  would  be  abso- 
lutely absurd  to  be  preached  here ;  and  yet  they  may 
be  effective  sermons  of  the  gospel.  They  may  take 
on  so  much  color,  they  may  have  such  form  and 
shape,  such  modes  of  application  to  the  unstudied  vil- 
lage life,  that  if  they  were  preached  to  young  men  of 
entirely  scholastic  habits,  they  would  have  little  rela- 
tion to  them. 

It  would  be  very  likely  to  be  so,  too,  if  ministers  in 
general  should  make  their  sermons  for  the  college.  I 
can  conceive  of  one  making  exceedingly  able  sermons  for 
college  classes,  which,  when  taken  out  into  the  country, 
would  put  the  parish  to  sleep.    And  for  this  reason, 


DEVELOPMENT  OF  SOCIAL  ELEMENTS. 


149 


that  preaching  has  to  be  vital  and  effective,  it  should 
derive  a  great  deal  of  its  element  from  the  known  life 
and  want  of  the  men  for  whom  the  sermon  is  a  med- 
ical prescription. 

IMPORTANCE  OF  KNOWING  THE  PEOPLE. 

Now,  in  ordinary  pastoral  life,  a  man  must  get  ac- 
quainted with  his  people.  This  is  hard  for  some ;  it 
grows  easier  by  practice.  Men  may  come  to  such  a 
knowledge  of  their  people  that  they  have  less  and  less 
need  to  visit  them  for  their  own  sake,  for  the  sake  of 
their  preparation.  And,  lastly,  a  man  who  lias  a  natu- 
ral aptitude  for  it,  and  has  had  large  experience  and 
been  long  in  the  field,  may  come  to  that  state  that,  so 
far  as  he  himself  is  concerned,  he  feels  almost  what  is 
in  the  air,  he  knows  what  ails  people  without  hearing, 
or  almost  without  talking  with  them.  But  this  is  not 
the  ordinary  experience. 

So,  then,  for  the  sake  of  a  man's  own  freshness,  vital- 
ity, directness,  humanity,  —  that  is,  preaching  to  that 
which  is  human  in  men,  —  for  all  these  reasons,  visita- 
tion is  desirable. 

FREEDOM  FROM  CLASS  INFLUENCES. 

Then  we  should  maintain  visitation  for  our  own 
sakes  on  still  another  ground,  and  that  is  to  keep  our- 
selves aloof  from  class  or  professional  influences.  It 
is  very  desirable  that  any  class  of  men  following  the 
same  general  pursuit  —  physicians,  lawyers,  ministers 
—  should  see  much  of  each  other.  The  esprit  de  corps 
is  not  only  a  source  of  refreshment,  but  there  is  great 
instruction  in  it.    But  then,  men  are  very  strongly  in- 


150 


LEGTUUES  ON  PREACHING. 


clined  to  become  selfish,  to  be  absorbed  in  their  class,  to 
think  and  to  sympathize  after  the  manner  of  their  kind. 
Now,  for  the  minister,  above  all  men,  it  is  a  necessity  that 
he  should  sympathize  with  humanity  from  the  top  to  the 
bottom  ;  with  all  men,  not  with  one  class  of  men ;  not 
with  the  best  men,  not  with  men  of  purest  thought 
alone,  because  that  unfits  him  to  deal  familiarly  and 
easily  with  men  who  have  no  such  habit  of  thought. 
As  the  steward  and  the  cook  must  know  the  tastes  of 
those  for  whom  they  are  preparing  the  table  from  day 
to  day,  so  the  minister  must  know  the  taste  and  the 
wants  of  those  for  wdiom  he  spreads  food  in  the  pulpit 
from  Sunday  to  Sunday ;  and  if  you  get  into  class 
liabits,  you  will  be  a  minister  for  ministers,  but  not  for 
the  people.  And  visitation  tends  largely  to  break  that 
up ;  especially  if  you  visit  not  the  select  families,  not 
the  places  where  it  is  pleasant  to  go,  but  everybody. 
Take  your  own  pleasure  along  with  you,  and  be  glad  to 
see  everybody  and  anybody.  The  minister  should  cut 
the  loaf  of  society,  not  horizontally,  but  vertically,  and 
take  it  with  all  there  is  in  it,  from  top  to  bottom. 
And  you  will  find  —  as  it  is  in  the  housewife's  cake 
sometimes  —  that  the  raisins  are  pretty  much  all  at 
the  bottom. 

GAINING  THE  CONFIDENCE  OF  PEOPLE. 

Then,  it  is  very  desirable  that  the  minister  should 
have  the  confidence  and  the  sympathy  of  his  people, 
that  he  should  be  warmed  and  upheld  by  them.  Noth- 
ing contributes  so  much  to  this  as  personal  acquaint- 
ance with  them,  man  by  man,  child  by  child,  all 
through  the  parish.     If  a   man  has   naturally  ge- 


DEVELOPMENT  OF  SOCIAL  ELEMENTS. 


151 


nial  manners,  and  is  a  man  of  genius,  and  delights 
people  on  Sunday,  they  gather  around  him  for  that 
reason.  He  gets  their  sympathy  somewhat  in  that 
way.  But  ordinarily  we  ought  to  begin  with  the  pre- 
sumption that  we  are  not  men  of  genius.  They  who 
think  they  are  geniuses  when  they  begin,  seldom  have 
reason  to  think  so  when  they  end;  and  if  you  are 
one,  you  will  find  it  out  farther  on.  You  would  better 
begin  as  though  you  were  simply  persons  of  fair  average 
intelligence,  whose  life-facts  are  to  be  developed  by  in- 
dustry and  close  adherence  to  all  the  known  paths  of 
experience.  In  going  among  your  people,  to  draw 
them  to  you  and  to  open  their  hearts  and  their  sym- 
pathies by  pastoral  visitation,  you  prepare  the  ground. 
A  minister  who  does  not  visit  very  much,  in  an  ordinary 
parish,  is  like  a  man  that  sows  his  seed  in  the  spring 
before  he  has  plowed  the  ground.  If  you  visit,  that 
plows  them  ;  then  preach,  as  you  have  your  furrows 
already  open  where  the  seed  may  fall  ;  then  harrow 
them,  and,  in  due  time,  we  may  hope  to  see  the  result. 

TWO  SPECIAL  CONDITIONS  FOR  VISITING. 

There  are  two  conditions  of  society  in  which  visiting 
should  abound.  First,  it  should  become  pre-eminently 
conspicuous  and  mainly  instrumental  in  your  ministry, 
where  you  are  thrown  among  people  who  do  not  care 
about  going  to  church.  And,  secondly,  it  should 
abound  in  those  conditions  where  people,  when  they 
do  go,  are  little  interested ;  in  other  words,  where  they 
are  barren  and  you  are  barren.  In  many  communities 
the  church  is  a  very  small  thing ;  there  is  very  little 
of  it ;  and  yet  the  population  is  large.    Now,  the  people 


152 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


are  all  yours.  A  genuine  fisherman  being  told  that 
the  stream  above  the  dam  is  full  of  trout,  only  nobody 
can  catch  them,  —  why,  his  blood  is  all  on  fire !  He 
says,  "  I  cannot  catch  them  ?  You  will  see  whether 
I  can't ! "  And  he  will  meditate  about  those  trout  night 
and  day,  and  he  will  catch  them,  for  his  ambition  is 
inspired.  A  minister  going  into  a  community  where 
there  are  but  few  that  come  to  church  ought  to  have 
his  whole  soul  stirred  within  him.  "Not  come  to 
church !  They  shall  come  to  church.  If  they  do  not, 
the  church  shall  go  to  them."  You  go  into  a  community 
not  to  be  snubbed.  Let  no  man  despise  your  youth  or 
your  inefficiency.    That  is  a  genuine  field  for  pride. 

HARD  FIELDS. 

When  you  go  into  a  community,  make  up  your  mind, 
"  I  don't  back  out  of  this  community.  I  have  been 
sent  here,  and,  after  due  consideration  and  investigation, 
here  am  I.  I  did  not  come  to  be  defeated,  and  I  shall 
conquer ;  standing,  or  stooping,  or  kneeling,  I  am  going 
to  have  my  way  in  this  community,  and  these  people 
shall  have  the  gospel."  If  they  are  pirates,  gamblers, 
smugglers,  drunkards,  racers,  sporting-men,  no  matter, 
they  are  men ;  and  if  you  believe  that  the  gospel  is  the 
power  of  God  for  salvation,  you  have  got  it.  Do 
you  mean  to  stand  and  let  any  community  overbear 
you,  or  drive  you  out  ?  With  all  manner  of  zeal  and 
patience,  with  all  manner  of  enthusiasm  and  affection, 
and  by  such  measures  as  are  necessary,  —  if  one  thing 
won't  do,  try  another ;  if  that  won't  do,  try  another ; 
but  maintain  yourself  there,  secure  a  lodgment  and 
gain  the  victory.    In  going  into  such  a  community,  I 


DEVELOPMENT  OF  SOCIAL  ELEMENTS. 


153 


do  not  care  how  well  you  preach,  they  won't  for  a  year 
or  two  find  that  out ;  but  you  should  go  among  them,  go 
to  those  that  do  not  expect  you,  go  to  those  that  do  not 
like  you.  I  heard  old  Dr.  Humphrey  say  that  where 
he  was  first  settled  there  was  a  man  very  much  opposed 
to  him,  a  farmer ;  and  the  Doctor,  who  had  been 
brought  up  on  a  farm  and  counted  himself  something 
in  the  harvest-field,  went  out  to  visit  the  old  man  in  his 
field,  where  he  was  reaping.  It  was  before  the  time 
even  of  cradles,  much  more  that  of  mowing-machines. 
The  man  proposed  to  go  back  to  the  house  and  entertain 
the  Doctor  respectfully.  "No,  no,"  said  Dr.  Humphreys  ; 
and  he  threw  off  his  coat.  "  Give  me  a  sickle;  we  can 
talk  as  we  work."  So  he  took  hold,  and  beat  the  man  all 
out  of  his  own  field,  sickling.  With  that  went  all  the 
old  fellow's  prejudice;  he  was  one  of  the  Doctor's  right- 
hand  men  after  that.  There  lived  over  on  the  other 
side  of  the  street  in  Lawrenceburg,  where  first  I  had 
my  settlement,  a  very  protane  man,  who  was  counted 
ugly.  I  understood  that  he  had  said  some  very  bitter 
things  of  me.  I  went  right  over  into  his  store,  and  sat 
down  on  the  counter  to  talk  with  him.  I  happened  in 
often,  —  day  in  and  day  out.  My  errand  was  to  make 
him  like  me.  I  did  make  him  like  me,  —  and  all  the 
children  too ;  and  when  I  left,  two  or  three  years  after- 
ward, it  was  his  house  that  was  open  to  take  me  and 
all  my  family  for  the  week  after  I  gave  up  my  rooms. 
And  to  the  day  of  his  death  I  do  not  believe  the  old 
man  could  mention  my  name  without  crying.  It  was 
my  good  fortune  to  meet  his  daughter,  or  daughter- 
in-law,  in  the  cars  during  my  latest  trip  in  the  West, 
and  it  brought  back  this  scene,  which  I  had  quite  for- 


154 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


gotten,  and  of  which  I  give  you  now  the  benefit  by  way 
of  illustration. 

HEART-WORK  INSTEAD  OF  HEAD-WORK. 

Another  point :  there  seem  to  be  in  the  ministry 
men  of  very  considerable  force,  men  of  a  good  deal  of 
one  kind  of  tact  and  genius,  but  they  do  not  run  to 
ideas.  There  are  a  great  many  churches  whose  force  is 
supposed  to  lie  in  the  pulpit ;  but  it  does  not.  And 
yet  they  hold  together  a  congregation  ;  it  grows,  it 
mellows,  it  becomes  liberal.  That  is  the  case  in  which 
a  man  must  apply  the  power  that  is  in  him  personally 
by  visitation,  —  making  up  for  the  barrenness  of  his 
sermons  by  the  richness  of  his  own  heart.  If  it  has 
not  been  given  to  him  to  have  a  lighthouse  in  the 
head,  if  the  lighthouse  is  in  the  heart,  let  him  go 
personally  where  its  light  can  shine  often  amongst  the 
people.  I  have  heard  persons  say,  when  a  brilliant 
preacher  came  into  town,  and  there  was  every  reason 
why  they  should  leave  their  parish  and  go  to  hear 
the  new-comer,  Still,  I  don't  know ;  we  have  had 
our  own  minister  so  long,  and  he  is  so  good,  and  we  all 
love  him  so  much,  and  our  children  have  all  been 
brought  up  under  his  preaching,  so  that  he  has  meshed 
them,  he  has  spun  himself  all  around  them,  —  it  is 
almost  like  a  bereavement  to  go  out  of  his  church ;  and 
that  in  spite  of  his  sermons  too." 

When  people  won't  come  to  hear  you  preach,  do  you 
go  and  talk  to  them  ;  and  when  they  do  come  to  hear 
you,  and  you  have  hardly  anything  to  preach  about, 
then  go  to  them  all  the  more.  There  are  hundreds  of 
men  that  talk  well  and  preach  badly.    There  are  a 


DEVELOPMENT  OF  SOCIAL  ELEMENTS.  155 

great  many  that  I  meet  on  the  street  who  talk  well  to 
me,  and  who,  as  ministers,  are  genial,  whose  faces  are 
full  of  inspiration;  they  make  points,  and  they  have 
an  incident  or  a  story  to  tell,  and  besides  all  that  they 
have  a  smile  that  rewards  me,  and  I  like  to  meet  them 
dearly.  But  oh,  I  don't  like  to  go  and  hear  them 
preach  ! 

So  then,  for  either  of  these  reasons,  and  for  those 
that  went  before,  —  pastoral  visitation  ! 

GENERAL  SOCIAL  AMENITY  AMONG  CHURCH-MEMBERS. 

I  wish  now  to  speak  upon  something  which  is  coming 
into  vogue,  but  which  is  comparatively  recent,  and  has 
not  yet  received  that  attention  in  the  development  of 
church  and  Christian  life  that  it  ought  to  have ;  I  mean 
the  social  sympathy  of  the  people,  that  feeling  of  inter- 
est in  each  other  which  belongs  to  church  communion. 
That  part  of  the  community  that  is  given  to  your 
charge  ought  to  be  made  really  to  love  each  other.  We 
read  about  that,  and  hear  about  it;  think  about  it! 
What  is,  on  the  whole,  the  vital  sympathy  of  church- 
members  with  each  other  ?  Now  I  shall  not  be  thought 
personal,  because  I  know  scarcely  a  soul  in  New  Haven  ; 
but  take  the  three  churches  which  stand  on  the  Com- 
mon. Take  them  family  by  family,  and  ask :  What  is 
the  real  sympathy,  the  electric  thrill,  the  gladness  that 
they  have  at  meeting  each  other  when  they  go  to 
church  on  Sunday,  or  after  they  come  out  of  church  ? 
How  is  it  that,  in  traveling,  or  upon  the  street,  or  any- 
where, you  feel  the  fact  tliat  a  man  is  a  member  of 
the  same  church  with  yourself  to  be  a  bond  of  sym- 
pathy ?    If  a  man  who  has  married  your  sister,  but 


156 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHlNa. 


whom  you  have  never  seen  before,  conies  into  the 
house  after  a  distant  journey,  and  you  meet  him  for  the 
first  time,  his  relationship  with  the  family  is  a  reasoi) 
for  gladness  over  and  above  anything  you  may  find  in 
him.  He  is  himself  and  your  sister  too ;  he  represents 
both  to  you. 

Every  Christian  is  supposed  to  represent  to  every 
other  one  the  Christ  that  loved  him  out  of  sin  and  into 
redemption.  There  ought  to  be  a  genuine  thrill  of  joy 
on  meeting.    What  is  the  fact  ? 

IMPERFECT  KINDS. 

Well,  there  is  this :  highly  organized  churches  have 
a  spurious  kind  of  sympathy.  It  is  tlie  sympathy  of 
ecclesiastical  or  theological  selfishness.  In  times  of 
liigh  controversy,  when  one  church  is  orthodox  and 
another  is  heterodox,  —  and  sometimes,  you  know,  or- 
thodoxy and  heterodoxy  are  interchangeable  terms,  and 
they  shift  about  promiscuously,  all  the  orthodox  people 
feel  an  intense  interest  in  each  other,  for  the  battle 
lias  come  to  be  hot.  The  lines  are  drawn.  People 
are  glad  you  belong  to  "  our  church."  They  say, 
"T3idn't  our  minister  give  it  to  them  last  Sunday?" 
A  little  combativeness  quickens  sympathy  very  much. 
So,  on  the  other  hand,  there  is  a  kind  of  esprit  de  cotj)s 
in  a  church  which  represents  itself  as  the  only  church, 
or,  if  not  the  only  church,  then  the  best  of  the  lot.  In 
Methodist  class-meetings,  I  have  often  heard  men  thank 
God  that  they  ever  came  into  the  Methodist  Church. 
But  it  is  the  Methodist  Church  they  love ;  it  is  not  the 
Christ  that  is  behind  all  men.  I  hear  men  congratulate 
themselves  that  they  are  in  the  Baptist  Church,  —  often- 


DEVELOPMENT  OF  SOCIAL  ELEMENTS. 


157 


times  I  congratulate  them  too.  I  know  men  who  feel 
that,  being  in  the  Episcopal  Church,  they  are  high  and 
dry  above  all  others.  But  it  is  one  thing  to  like  a  man 
because  he  belongs  to  the  same  church  that  you  do,  and 
another  to  like  him  because  he  is  a  man,  and  a  man 
whom  Christ  has  loved,  and  whom  he  is  redeeming  by 
the  power  of  his  blood  Ecclesiastical  sympathies  are 
not  to  go  for  nothing,  but  they  are  of  the  lowest  value. 
They  are  too  often  put  in  the  very  highest  place.  I 
would  not  put  them  on  a  low  plane  ;  but,  after  all,  the 
deepest  feeling  of  sympathy  between  man  and  man 
should  not  be  in  respect  to  mere  ecclesiastical  or  theo- 
logical peculiarities. 

Then  there  is  a  spiritual  or  religious  sympathy  ex- 
isting in  churches.  By  this  I  mean  that  where  men 
are  genuinely  converted  and  truly  spiritually  minded, 
they  have  a  sort  of  vague  and  general  regard  and 
sympathy  for  the  body  of  Christ.  T  think  that,  for  the 
most  part,  our  New  England  Orthodox  churches  get 
very  little  further  than  that  (I  may  perhaps  be  too  un- 
measured in  the  statement,  but  that  is  my  impression). 

Now,  there  is  another  kind  of  sympathy  than  that ; 
namely,  the  sympathy  which  men  may  have  with 
each  other  on  the  highest  spiritual  grounds.  I  admit 
that  to  be  the  highest ;  I  admit  that  if  the  de- 
velopment of  the  highest  form  of  spiritual  experience 
were  so  prevalent  as  to  dominate  other  forms,  and  all 
men  could  come  together  and  touch  each  other  on 
that  ground,  that  would  be  in  every  sense  the  best. 
But,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  it  is  only  the  twentieth,  or 
the  thirtieth,  or  the  fortieth  individual  that  is  compe- 
tent to  that  highest  form. 


158 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


THE  TRUE  PRACTICAL  PLANE. 

There  are  comparatively  few  who  can  feel  a  large, 
intelligent,  generous  sympathy  with  men  on  the  highest 
spiritual  and  religious  grounds.  And  in  regard  to  the 
great  mass  of  men,  if  we  come  into  sympathy  with  them, 
we  must  do  it  on  the  intermediate  plane,  namely,  where 
their  humanity  is,  and  on  those  grounds  which  are  com- 
mon to  mankind ;  on  grounds  of  generosity,  of  simple 
common  kindness,  of  ordinary  intercourse.  There  is 
where  the  play  of  sympathy  is  to  be.  Every  church 
ought  to  bring  its  members  together  in  such  a  way 
that  they  shall  like  each  other,  —  not  because  they 
are  perfect  (for  then  how  many  would  there  be  in 
fellowship?),  not  because  they  are  of  this  grade  or  of 
that  church ;  but  from  a  feeling  of  generous,  glowing, 
joyous,  glorious  fellowship  ;  fellowship  which,  while  it 
may  begin  or  terminate  in  the  very  highest  moral  ex- 
periences, takes  in  all  forms  of  mutual  kindliness,  clear 
down  to  the  lowest  physical  conditions.  Thus,  to  every 
member  in  the  church  there  should  be  the  assurance 
that  he  is  welcome  to  all  the  others,  or,  at  all  events, 
to  the  great  body  of  the  Christian  church.  Now,  is 
this  the  case  ?  Do  men  get  together  on  Sunday  in 
that  way  ?  Do  they  go  away  from  church  on  Sun- 
day with  any  such  glow  as  this  ?  As  a  general  rule, 
I  think  not.  The  point  I  wish  to  make  is,  that,  in 
the  administration  of  the  social  affairs  of  the  church, 
provision  should  be  made  by  which  the  members  would 
see  each  other,  not  only  as  church-members,  but  in 
their  ordinary  relations,  —  as  neighbors,  as  friends,  as 
citizens,  as  business  men,  as  common  folks. 


DEVELOPMENT  OF  SOCIAL  ELEMENTS.  159 


PROVISION  FOR  SOCIAL  GATHERINGS. 

Over  and  above  the  sympathy  which  you  beget  by 
Sunday  services  and  week-day  lectures  and  prayer- 
meetings,  there  ought  to  be  meetings  where  people 
gather  simply  because  they  like  each  other ;  not  to 
talk  formally  and  stiffly  about  moral  things,  but  to  talk 
just  as  they  would  at  home.  This  can  be  done  in  a 
variety  of  ways.  In  the  first  place,  I  think  our  churches 
are  being  built  more  and  more  with  large  social  accom- 
modations ;  parlors  to  the  church  are  becoming  quite 
as  indispensable  as  pews  and  pulpits.  This  is  a  sign  of 
the  gradual  change  which  is  going  on  in  this  direction ; 
and  it  is  a  very  admirable  change.  No  church  ought  to 
be  built  after  this,  in  city  or  country,  that  has  not  in 
connection  with  it  either  a  place  set  apart  as  a  parlor, 
or  a  room  which  by  some  little  change  of  seats  could  be 
made  into  a  parlor.  There  ought  to  be,  from  week  to 
week,  or  every  other  week,  during  the  largest  part  of 
the  year,  such  little  gatherings  as  shall  mingle  the  peo- 
ple together  and  make  them  like  one  another.  There 
are  few  persons  that  you  do  not  like  better,  in  a  certain 
measure,  if  you  meet  them  often,  provided  that  you 
are  at  all  charitable  yourself;  and  there  are  few  that 
you  will  like  as  well,  if  you  meet  them  too  often  and 
carry  the  intimacy  too  far.  But  up  to  a  certain  point 
—  and  you  will  never  be  likely  to  transcend  it  in  these 
church  gatherings — you  will  like  everybody  better. 
You  find  this  man  is  not  so  stingy  as  you  thought  he 
was  ;  that  man  not  so  cold-hearted  as  he  seemed  to  be ; 
this  woman  not  so  sharp-tongued  as  she  had  the  name 
,oi  being ;  and  there  are  a  great  many  other  qualities  of 


160 


LECTURES  ON  iPREACillNa. 


heart  and  head  that  come  out.  Why  !  that  old  dul- 
lard never  laughed  at  a  joke,  and  you  thought  it  was 
not  in  the  power  of  man  to  make  him  laugh  in  that 
way.  You  find  there  is  something  in  him.  There  is  a 
great  deal  in  everybody  ;  but  everybody  does  not  al- 
ways know  how  to  get  it  out.  Society,  intercourse, 
fellowship  in  church  life,  develops  these  things.  Men 
respect  each  other,  they  get  over  their  little  difficulties 
more  easily,  they  fall  into  quarrels  less  easily.  There 
are  a  thousand  ways  in  which  church  life,  by  being  de- 
veloped in  this  manner,  socially  thrives  as  it  otherwise 
would  not.  This  is  not  to  be  considered  as  a  substitute 
for  meetings ;  it  is  supplementary  and  auxiliary. 

PICNICS. 

Then  I  am  in  favor  of  multiplying  picnics  as  much 
as  possible,  and  all  sorts  of  little  out-of-doors  observ- 
ances for  the  summer.  In  Boston,  they  used  once  a 
year  to  go  down  the  Bay  for  a  chowder-party  ;  all  the 
concomitants  of  that  were  agreeable,  and  the  people 
who  went  were,  to  be  sure,  the  more  select  part  of  the 
congregation,  but  it  did  much  to  help  them  in  their 
social  life.  It  did  much  to  mix  the  people  together 
and  make  the  church  more  harmonious  and  homo- 
geneous. It  is  very  desirable,  too,  for  another  reason, 
—  especially  in  cities,  —  namely,  that  our  people  are 
of  all  sorts.  They  are  from  the  top,  the  middle,  and 
the  bottom  of  society.  The  gradations  are  infinite,  and 
it  very  desirable  that  rich  people  should  mingle  wdth 
poor  people,  that  persons  of  culture  and  refinement 
should  be  kindly  and  intimately  associated  with  per- 
sons of  less  refinement. 


bEVELOPMP:NT  OF  SOCIAL  ELEMENTS. 


161 


THE  CHURCH  SHOULD  BE  A  HOUSEHOLD. 

It  is  very  desirable  that  you  should  temper  the  body 
of  Christ  together,  so  that  every  one  of  the  members 
of  the  church  shall  have  a  pride  in  the  gifts  of  every 
other  one.  Do  you  think  that  in  a  household 
where  the  oldest  daughter  is  an  artist,  and  paints ; 
and  the  second  girl  is  a  musical  genius,  who,  though 
she  cannot  paint,  is  brilliant  in  playing  the  piano ; 
and  the  third  girl  is  the  housekeeper,  eminent  in 
economy  and  tact,  who  likes  entertaining  and  likes 
management,  and  that  is  her  forte ;  and  the  boys  are, 
respectively,  one  a  merchant,  another  a  lawyer,  and  the 
other  a  physician,  and  they  all  excel,  —  do  you  suppose 
that  when  they  come  together  they  envy  each  other  ? 
Don't  you  suppose  that  the  boys  are  all  proud  of  the  sis- 
ters, and  the  sisters  of  the  brothers  ?  —  of  this  one,  be- 
cause she  has  a  genius  for  painting,  and  of  that  one,  be- 
cause she  has  a  genius  for  music,  and  of  the  other,  be- 
cause she  has  those  fine  domestic  traits  ;  of  this  one, 
because  he  is  a  successful  merchant,  and  that  one,  be- 
cause he  is  an  able  lawyer,  and  of  the  young  doctor, 
because  his  last  thesis  was  published  in  the  Surgical 
Review  "  ?  They  all  glory  in  each  other.  They  sit 
around  and  look  with  glowing  eyes  upon  one  another. 
The  gifts  of  each  belong  to  all. 

Now,  according  to  the  theory  of  Paul,  —  or  the 
theory  of  Christ,  from  whom  Paul  got  everything, 
(the  Jews  say,  ''Where  would  Christianity  have  been 
if  it  had  not  been  for  Paul  ? "  and  I  say,  Where 
would  Paul  have  been,  if  it  had  not  been  for 
Christ  ? )  so,  according  to  the  theory  of  Paul  and 


162 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


Christ,  the  church  is  a  body,  and  you  are  members 
one  of  another,  and  what  stirs  one  stirs  all,  and  the 
gifts  of  every  one  in  the  church  belong  to  all,  and 
the  feebler  members  ought  to  be  proud  of  the  gifts 
of  the  more  eminent  members.  Is  it  so  ?  is  that  the 
feeling  of  fellowship,  oneness,  fraternity,  unity  in  tlie 
•  church  ;  or  are  not  men  envying  each  other's  gifts  and 
opportunities  ?  Is  there  not  infinite  friction  in  tlie 
movement  of  the  wheels,  because  the  passions  of  envy 
and  jealousy  and  selfishness  are  permitted  to  mix  so 
much  in  church  life  ?  You  must  get  rid  of  those  things. 
You  cannot  preach  them  out  of  the  church.  You  can- 
not legislate  them  out  of  the  church.  You  cannot  get 
them  out  of  the  church  so  long  as  the  Devil  is  alive  ; 
but  then  you  can  go  a  great  ways  toward  it,  if  you 
knead  the  church  together.  You  never  saw  a  good 
batch  of  bread  in  your  life  that  was  not  kneaded  a 
good  deal ;  and  you  never  saw  a  church  that  was  really 
good  which  w^as  not  a  good  deal  kneaded. 

THE  RIGHT  USE  OF  THEOLOGY. 

I  think  that  this  idea  of  working  in  the  church  to- 
wards personal  fellowship  and  personal  unity  and  sym- 
pathy is  far  more  prevalent  in  the  New  Testament 
than  in  theology.  It  must  be,  of  course.  Theology 
is  osteology,  and  a  skeleton  is  a  poor  thing  to  live  with. 
But  that  which  makes  a  man  handsome  is  not  being 
without  bones.  Some  people  say  occasionally,  because 
we  hit  theology  a  slap,  that  we  do  not  believe  in  it. 
Indeed,  we  do  believe  in  it ;  but  w^e  believe  in  some- 
thing else  besides.  Theology  ought  to  be  inside ;  it  is 
the  frame  on  which  you  build  everything.  We  believe  in 


DEVELOPMENT  OF  SOCIAL  ELEMENTS. 


163 


the  succulency  and  the  elasticity  of  the  nerve,  and  the 
bloom  and  beauty  of  the  skin  that  overlays  it  all.  But 
what  would  all  these  things  be  if  there  were  not  any 
bones  there  to  lay  them  upon,  and  by  which  they  could 
stand  up  and  be  operated  ?  Men  would  all  be  gelatinous  ; 
no  better  than  so  many  jelly-fish.  So  theology  has  its 
own  sphere  and  function.  But,  more  than  this,  even 
ethical  preaching  does  not  ordinarily  aim  at  that  ideal 
fellowship  and  unity  which  were  sought  after  by  the 
Apostles  and  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ.  That  is  a  spiritual 
kingdom. 

THE  SUPREMACY  OF  SPIRITUAL  QUALITIES. 

I  think  men  preach  a  great  deal  more  in  the 
line  of  the  seventh  of  Eomans,  —  then  they  are  Cal- 
vinists,  —  or  the  eighth  of  Romans,  —  and  then  they 
are  apt  to  be  Universalists  or  Arminians,  —  a  great  deal 
more,  in  short,  in  the  line  of  the  deep  doctrinal  experi- 
ences, than  they  do  in  that  of  the  thirteenth  chapter  of 
First  Corinthians :  "  Though  I  speak  with  the  tongues 
of  men  and  of  angels,  and  have  not  love,  I  am  become 
as  sounding  brass  or  a  tinkling  cymbal."  And  then 
Paul  goes  on  to  say, Though  I  have  all  zeal  and  all  faith 
and  all  knowledge,  and  though  I  have  everything,  if  I 
have  not  love,  I  have  nothing."  Then  comes  that  mag- 
nificent chant,  than,  which  there  never  was  a  nobler 
since  the  angels  sang  the  coming  of  Christ,  that  mar- 
velous description  of  love  that  does  not  linger  or  grow 
weary,  but  rushes  through  ;  every  stroke  is  like  the 
stroke  of  Michael  Angelo's  brush  that  brings  out  the 
glowing  traits  !  And  then  that  still  more  profound,  mys- 
terious, and  marvelous  passage  in  which  it  is  said  that 


164 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


all  the  things  that  men  know,  and  think,  and  believe, 
are  relative  to  time.  Knowledge  shall  pass  away, 
theology,  philosophy,  mysteries,  prophecies,  shall  all 
cease,  but  there  are  some  things  that  will  not  pass 
away,  —  and  what  are  these  ?  Faith,  hope,  love.  These 
abide.  Death,  by  the  great  principle  of  relativity,  will 
wipe  out  thousands  of  experiences  and  things  tliat  are 
important  to  us  while  we  are  here,  and  they  will  not  go 
beyond  the  grave.  But  there  are  some  things  that  will 
go  beyond  it,  and  are  apart  of  immortality;  and  these 
are  faitli,  hope,  and  love. 

Now,  tlie  power  of  preaching  should  be  to  develop 
in  men  by  the  social  life  the  affinities  and  affections  that 
are  in  these  great  qualities,  and  that  carry  them  through 
life  and  out  of  the  present  into  the  eternal  life. 

SUNDAY-SCHOOLS. 

The  next  topic  of  which  I  will  speak  under  the  head 
of  the  social  forces  is  the  Sunday-school ;  a  subject  so 
familiar  to  you  that  T  shall,  perhaps,  be  relieved  from 
saying  much.  I  think  that  Sunday-schools  are  the 
young  people's  church.  Although  the  minister  ought 
to  preach  so  that  the  young  people  shall  have  their  por- 
tion in  his  sermons,  yet,  for  a  variety  of  reasons,  going 
to  church  is  not  a  very  pleasant  thing  to  little  children. 
They  are  full  of  life  and  motion,  and  our  habits  of  go- 
ing to  church  are  not  like  those  of  the  Orientals  ;  they 
are  not  like  the  habits  that  existed  upon  the  borders, 
where  mothers  went  to  church  with  their  children,  and 
where  all  the  household  duties  were  performed  in  the 
church,  or  by  just  stepping  out  of  the  door,  and  every- 
thing went  on  as  usual.  The  minister  preached  through 


DEVELOPMENT  OF  SOCIAL  ELEMENTS. 


165 


the  squalls  and  storms  of  discipline,  and  all  manner  of 
domestic  infelicities,  and  what  not  ?  We  have  ordered 
things  so  that  there  is  a  inethod  in  our  churches,  but  it 
is  a  method  to  which  old  people  can  better  conform 
than  little  children.  They  nestle.  I  am  always  glad 
to  see  a  child  go  to  sleep  in  church.  It  is  one  of  the 
beatitudes.  There  ought  to  be  provision  made  for  chil- 
dren. The  Sunday-school  is  their  part  of  Sunday  ser- 
vice, provided  it  is  properly  conducted,  and  is  in  a  place 
which  is  comfortable  for  children,  and  keyed  to  their 
necessities. 

HOW  CHILDKEN  SHOULD  BE  TAUGHT. 

Let  me  say  generally,  without  pausing  to  discuss  the 
whole  question  of  Sunday-schools,  that  it  seems  to  m6 
the  fundamental  idea  in  teaching  children  is  not  the 
same  as  that  in  teaching  grown  people.  Grown  people 
need  to  be  taught  not  so  much  ideas  at  first,  as  affections. 
The  world  has  educated  them,  in  respect  to  intelligence, 
in  a  certain  way,  and  the  relative  deficiency  in  adults  is 
in  right  affections.  But  in  little  children  affections  are 
pre-eminent,  and  feeling  is  their  weakness, —  that  is, 
their  strength  :  for  when  a  thing  is  too  strong  we  always 
call  it  a  weakness.  So  the  prime  purpose  in  Sunday- 
school  work  should  be  to  teach  ideas  to  children,  and 
indoctrinate  them,  —  to  give  instruction.  Not  that  we 
are  to  omit  appeals  to  their  conscience  and  their  affec- 
tions. But  it  is  so  easy  to  beat  the  Sunday-school  up 
into  a  foam,  if  we  only  have  a  zealot  as  a  superintend- 
ent, and  to  have  all  the  children  crying,  and  all  of  them 
full  of  experiences  which  you  know  they  cannot  have. 
You  might,  with  as  much  propriety,  take  a  bucket  of 


166 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


water  and  swing  it  around,  and  call  it  an  ocean,  as  to 
bring  a  little  child  to  me  and  say  that  he  has  these  ex- 
periences which  imply  growth,  width,  and  a  sense  of  in- 
finity. Therefore  I  say  that,  in  instructing  children, 
whether  by  descriptive,  or  didactic,  or  historical  means, 
we  should  do  it  always  through  the  imagination,  —  God 
has  ordained  that  children  should  learn  through  the 
imagination ;  the  Eeason  is  Chief  Justice,  but  that  which 
brings  the  case  before  the  court  is  Imagination. 

Children  in  Sunday-school  are  to  receive  instruction, 
for  a  variety  of  reasons.  First,  because  the  children 
need  it ;  and  secondly,  because  it  prevents  the  bringing 
in  of  those  ten  thousand  little  clap-trap  things  that  in- 
terest children,  and  do  nothing  else.  There  is  nothing 
that  interests  a  child  so  much  as  real  knowledge,  whole- 
some instruction,  —  nothing  !  When  I  was  a  child,  my 
dear  aunt  Esther  used  to  promise  that  if  I  would  be  a 
good  boy  she  would  read  to  me  on  a  Sunday  afternoon 
about  the  ten  plagues  of  Pharaoh  ;  and  I  was  enough 
of  a  Christian  to  like  to  see  a  fellow  thrashed,  so  I  al- 
ways wanted  to  hear  about  Pharaoh  !  So,  too,  it  was 
with  all  the  inimitable  stories  of  Joseph's  life,  of  Euth, 
and  the  other  histories  of  the  Old  Testament,  and  the 
parables  of  the  New. 

Children  love  knowledge.  Their  inquiries  are  often 
as  salutary  for  you  as  they  are  natural  to  them. 

In  adapting,  therefore,  the  Sunday-school  to  the 
wants  of  children,  treat  them  as  rational  human  be- 
ings. Believe  that  the  foundation  element  in  them  is 
curiosity,  as  you  call  it,  —  that  is,  the  nascent  forms  of 
philosophical  feeling,  the  knowing  states  of  mind  that 
are  to  be  developed  in  them.    In  connection  with  that, 


DEVELOPMENT  OF  SOCIAL  ELEMENTS. 


167 


but  without  keeping  it  uppermost,  or  rather  keeping  it 
undermost  as  the  foundation,  make  moderate  appeal 
to  the  feelings  of  children.  I  am  opposed,  heartily 
opposed,  to  the  impositions  that  I  see  practiced  on 
children  by  attempting  to  make  them,  at  nine,  ten, 
eleven,  or  twelve  years  old,  do  things  and  feel  things 
that  belong  to  adult  life,  and  do  not  belong  to  children. 
The  idea  that  you  can  organize  them  and  bring  them 
to  pledges,  and  get  them  to  make  promises,  and  put 
them  on  platforms  that  are  pre-eminently  out  of  their 
reach,  it  seems  to  me,  is  absolutely  unfair  to  them. 

MAKE  RELIGION  JOYFUL  TO  CHILDREN. 

Our  Sunday-schools  ought  also  to  be  so  conducted 
that  all  the  associations  of  children  with  the  church 
shall  be  pleasant.  I  feel  an  intense  desire,  which  grows 
stronger  as  I  grow  older,  that  religion  shall  be  to  men 
that  beautiful  thing  which  it  really  is.  It  is  not  a  gaunt 
skeleton ;  it  is  not  a  scarecrow ;  it  is  not  a  prison,  nor 
a  bondage ;  it  is  not  a  chain,  nor  a  shackle ;  it  is  the 
brightness,  the  beauty,  the  joy,  the  triumph  of  sun- 
shine. It  is  liberty  gained  by  those  that  have  been 
endungeoned.  It  is  light  revealing  the  world  in  wonder 
to  men  that  have  been  blind.  It  is  all  sweet  sounds 
coming  in  concord  to  ears  long  since  closed,  or  that 
never  heard.  It  is  liberty,  power.  It  is  all  sweetness 
in  the  soul,  and  ecstatic  hope.  I  hate  asceticism  ;  I  hate 
the  bondage  and  the  gloom  which  are  so  often  thought 
to  be  necessary  as  medicines  for  depravity.  Light 
sweeps  away  the  visions  of  the  midnight.  Morning  is 
the  best  cure  for  midnight,  and  I  long  to  have  the  chil- 
dren feel  that  there  is  nothing  in  this  world  more  at- 


1G8 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


tractive,  more  earnestly  to  be  desired,  than  manhood  in 
Christ  Jesus.  But  ah  !  I  cannot  preach  to  little  chil- 
dren the  clouded  brow ;  I  cannot  preach  the  eye  of  fire, 
nor  the  hand  that  carries  the  iron  scepter.  I  must  preach 
him  who  said,  "  Suffer  them  to  come  unto  me,"  and  said 
it  with  such  sweetness  that  children  spontaneously 
rushed  to  his  arms.  Think  of  what  Christ  must  have 
been,  when  his  disciples  had  to  interfere  between  him 
and  children  that  were  running  to  him,  or  brought  by 
their  mothers.  That  Christ  I  preach ;  and  I  love  to  see 
my  children  —  for  they  are  my  children  —  gather 
around  about  the  knees  of  Jesus  with  the  same  feelino-s 
that  they  have  toward  father  and  toward  mother,  and 
look  upon  their  con.ipanions  and  the  members  of  the 
church  as  thpugh  looking  upon  brothers  and  sisters. 
Thus  gradually  the  thought  is  etherealized  and  lifted  up 
to  the  higher  sphere,  as  their  young  imaginations  and 
the  glories  of  heavenly  relations  are  added  to  the  natu- 
ral affinities  of  the  earthly  state. 

So,  in  our  Sunday-schools,  all  precision  and  rigidity, 
except  so  far  as  is  necessary  for  organic  purposes,  all 
tasking  and  all  government  that  is  painfully  oppressive, 
should  be  omitted.  While  the  Sunday-school  should 
not  be  a  mere  amusement-shop,  while  the  picnics  and 
various  excursions  should  not  predominate  over  the 
moral  ends,  yet  there  should  be  such  a  proportion  of 
them  that  children  shoukl  love  their  Sunday-school 
better  than  anything  else.  I  believe  my  own  Sun- 
day-school children  do.  In  the  providence  of  God 
we  have  about  twenty-five  hundred  or  three  thou- 
sand children  under  my  general  care,  and  I  think 
they  are  proud  of  their  school,  and  love  it.  When 


DEVELOPMENT  OF  SOCIAL  ELEMENTS.  169 


the  new  Bethel  building  was  in  danger  of  taking  fire 
from  a  neighboring  building  that  was  burning,  I  heard 
of  it  and  rushed  down  Hicks  Street,  —  for  it  is  a 
little  bit  of  an  idol  to  me  too,  —  and  I  saw  the  chil- 
dren sitting  on  the  thresholds  of  their  houses,  and  on 
the  streets,  and  holding  each  others  hands  and  cry- 
in^T  as  thouo^h  their  little  hearts  would  break.  I  said 
to  one  of  the  little  girls, What  is  the  matter  ? "  "  Oh/' 
said  she,  "  our  Bethel  is  burning  !  our  Bethel  is  burn- 
ing ! "  The  children  really  grieved  as  though  it  were 
their  father's  house.  They  love  the  place,  they  love 
everything  about  it,  and  they  love  each  other.  Sun- 
day-schools should  inspire  in  children  this  feeling  of 
love  for  religion,  and  for  the  church,  and  for  all  the 
offices  of  religion. 

I  insist  upon  this  the  more,  because  as  a  child  I 
never  did  love  Sunday-schools.  The  first  one  I  went 
to  was  in  the  southwest  pen  —  or  pew,  as  they  called  it 
—  in  my  father's  old  Litchfield  church.  I  think  there 
were  three  other  wretches  there.  I  had  sat  out  my 
father's  sermon,  and  this  was  the  nooning ;  and  while 
my  little  stomach  cried  "  Gingerbread  ! "  they  said 
"Catechism."  I  remember  swinging  my  little  legs  from 
those  high  seats.  I  could  not  reach  half-way  down  to 
the  ground.  It  was,  of  all  things,  grim  and  disconso- 
late ;  for  I  had  to  have  catechism  just  as  much  at  home, — 
it  was  not  a  substitute  at  all.  The  next  time  I  went 
to  Sunday-school,  it  was  in  the  Bennett  Street  school- 
house  in  Boston,  after  we  moved  there.  I  think  I  went 
there  two  Sundays.  The  first  Sunday  I  got  along  well, 
I  suppose,  for  it  is  obliterated  from  my  mind,  —  I  sup- 
pose I  was  profited.    On  the  second  Sunday  some  little 

VOL.  U,  § 


170 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


question  came  up  between  me  and  the  teacher,  aiwi  he 
cuffed  me,  I  think,  and  I  kicked  him,  under  the  seat.  I 
did  not  go  any  more  to  that  school.  So  my  personal 
experience  in  Sunday-schools  has  not  been  particularly 
auspicious. 

But  in  my  present  charge,  my  own  church,  I  think 
the  happier  spirit  I  have  described  belongs  to  our  Sun- 
day-schools. I  speak,  therefore,  of  what  I  have  seen, 
and  testify  that  which  I  do  know,  tliat  it  is  in  the 
power  of  teachers  and  of  a  church  to  make  a  school 
profoundly  interesting ;  to  crowd  it  full  of  children 
and  keep  it  full ;  to  teach  them  the  fundamental  truths 
•of  Christianity  without  neglecting  their  spiritual  affec- 
tions and  religious  feelings  ;  and  to  make  them  love  each 
other  and  love  the  church,  and  associate  with  the  whole 
round  of  religion  the  most  joyous  thoughts  and  feelings. 

QUESTIONS  AND  ANSWERS. 

Q.  Would  you  advise  parents  to  compel  their  children  to  go  to 
church,  for  the  sake  of  forming  the  habit,  against  their  inclina- 
tion ? 

Mr.  Beecher.  —  Yes  ;  mournfully,  yes.  I  think  that 
where  children  do  not  wish  to  go  to  church,  as  a  general 
thing  it  is  largely  the  result  of  cause,  and  that  that 
cause  does  not  always  lie  in  the  depravity  of  human 
nature  —  in  the  child.  Now,  I  was  a  minister's  son, 
and  I  had  to  go  to  meeting,  and  I  knew  it.  Therefore 
I  hardly  ever  tried  to  get  away.  Once  in  a  while  I  es- 
caped ;  but  I  do  not  remember  that  I  ever  understood 
a  single  thing  my  father  preached  about  till  I  was  ten 
years  old  ;  and  my  father  certainly  was  a  good  preacher. 
He  seldom  preached  descriptive  or  historical  sermons ; 


DEVELOPMENT  OF  SOCIAL  ELEMENTS.  171 

they  were  almost  always  structural ;  they  had  a  very 
strong  body  of  argument,  united  with  appeal.  He  was 
settled  in  Litchfield,  where  there  was  a  law  school  and 
a  female  seminary ;  and  he  had  for  a  congregation,  not 
only  astute  farmers  and  able  mechanics,  but  also  many 
lawyers,  and  the  daughters  of  many  of  the  most  culti- 
vated families  in  the  land  at  that  time.  And  his  style 
of  preaching,  unconsciously  to  himself,  was  fitted  to  the 
more  intellectual  part  of  the  congregation.  And  I, — 
poor  little  curmudgeon  !  —  sat  down  in  the  pew,  —  and, 
by  the  by,  the  minister's  pew  was  right  under  the  side 
of  the  pulpit;  the  pulpit  was  —  less  than  twenty-five 
feet  high,  and  we  were  so  concealed  that  I  could  n't  see 
my  father,  and  should  never  have  known  who  he  was 
if  I  had  not  seen  him  at  home.  I  sat  in  that  high- 
backed  and  high-sided  pew,  and  the  only  light  or  com- 
fort that  I  had,  the  only  consolation  of  the  gospel  ad- 
ministered to  me,  was  the  privilege  of  squeaking  one 
of  those  little  rounds  that  turned  in  the  open  wood- 
work of  the  pew.  Now,  my  mother  was  not  a  cruel 
woman,  but  she  did  some  things  that  I  think  she  has 
always  been  sorry  for,  since  she  has  gone  to  her  rest. 
When  I  would  fall  asleep,  and  really  was  out  of  the 
way  and  no  trouble  to  anybody,  she  would  rap  my  head 
and  wake  me  up.  That  is  treating  children  not  accord- 
ing to  their  nature ;  it  is  not  motherly ;  it  is  not  right. 
Now,  if  children  are  brought  up  where,  however  much 
food  there  may  be  in  the  church  for  adults,  there  is  none 
at  all  for  them,  why  should  they  want  to  go  ?  In  the 
Episcopal  and  the  Eoman  Catholic  churches  there  is 
something  for  children.  In  that  regard  those  churches 
are  far  beyond  us.    A  child  can  follow  the  service  in 


172 


LECTURES  OX  PREACHING. 


the  book,  can  make  responses,  can  read,  can  sing,  —  and 
there  is  very  much  of  song  service  in  the  Episcopal 
Church.  In  ours,  how  little  is  there  which  is  fitted  to 
the  thought  of  the  children  !  While  we  take  care  of 
adults,  and  provide  for  their  edification,  we  are  in  dan- 
ger of  letting  God's  little  ones  take  care  of  themselves. 

Q.  What  position  would  you  have  the  minister  occupy  in  the 
Sunday-school  ? 

Mr.  Beecher.  —  If  he  has  nobody  else  that  can  do 
it,  and  if  he  is  as  strong  as  Samson,  he  should  be  super- 
intendent. But,  as  a  general  rule,  young  gentlemen, 
if  you  can  do  so,  shift  upon  other  people  just  as  much 
work  as  you  can  ;  there  will  always  be  enough  left  for 
you.  Make  others  visit,  if  you  can  ;  make  others  take 
care  of  the  Sunday-school,  if  you  can  ;  make  them 
preside  in  meetings,  if  you  can  ;  send  men  to  this, 
that,  and  the  other  station.  You  are  gaining  all  the 
time  by  drilling  them,  and  you  will  have  just  as  much 
as  you  can  do  yourself.  In  my  first  parish  I  was  super- 
intendent of  my  Sunday-school,  and  also  taught  a  class 
at  the  same  time,  so  that  I  served  from  the  very  bot- 
tom, and  went  up.  But  after  I  went  to  Indianapolis,  I 
had  men  that  could  do  it.  In  my  first  parish  I  had 
only  two  men,  —  no,  I  had  but  one,  and  I  did  not  want 
him.  I  had  to  be  superintendent,  or  else  there  would 
be  no  school.  In  respect  to  all  those  things,  do  the 
best  you  can.  If  you  can  get  somebody  that  will  do 
about  half-way,  with  you  as  his  auxiliary,  take  him. 
If  you  cannot  find  anybody,  do  it  yourself,  and  all  the 
rest  of  the  work  besides.  You  will  notice-  that  in  ny 
community  where  you  have  to  attend  to  so  many  of 


DEVELOPMENT  OF  SOCIAL  ELEMENTS. 


173 


these  details,  there  is  not  so  much  intelligence  as  to 
make  very  strong  draughts  on  your  preaching  power. 
But  if  you  go  into  a  community  where  there  is  more 
culture,  and  knowledge  is  greater,  and  where  you  have 
constantly  to  rise  yourself,  you  must  intermit.  That 
man  is  the  best  preacher  and  organizer  of  a  church 
who  knows  how  to  make  the  most  men  do  the  most 
things. 

Q.  What  is  the  best  kind  of  pastoral  visitation  ? 

Mr.  Beecher.  —  All  kinds.  If  I  were  going  to  visit 
the  sick,  I  should  go  with  sympathy  and  gentleness, 
with  cheerfulness,  but  not  with  mirth.  If  I  were  going 
to  visit  a  family  in  the  ordinary  society  of  life,  I  should 
go  to  the  house  and  call  for  the  children  ;  that  is  my 
choice,  always ;  and  I  notice  that  where  I  have  the 
children,  I  have  the  old  folks  too.  But  then,  never  go 
in  any  formal,  set  way ;  go  naturally,  go  as  a  man,  go 
because  yon  like  the  people. 

Q.  What  do  you  say  as  to  praying  in  families  ? 

Mr.  Beecher.  —  I  should  never  thrust  prayer  upon 
a  family.  I  would  always  go  in  such  a  state  that,  if  it 
were  desirable,  I  should  be,  at  once,  ready  and  willing 
to  pray  with  them.  That  leads  me  to  another  point. 
When  I  came  to  Brooklyn,  all  the  young  folks  were  dis- 
posed to  avoid  me ;  that  is,  outside  of  the  church  and 
the  meetings.  They  thought  that  I  would  talk  minister 
to  them.  But  I  said  to  them  all  in  my  congregation, 
"My  young  friends,  I  want  you  to  understand  that  I 
wdll  never  open  my  lips  to  you  on  the  subject  of  religion 
till  you  ask  me.  If  you  think  I  am  going  to  follow 
you  up,  you  mistake  me ;  I  shall  no  more  do  it  than  I 


174 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


would  insist,  if  I  were  a  physician,  upon  throwing  my 
pills  around  in  a  promiscuous  party,  and  asking  the 
guests  if  they  did  not,  feel  bad,  and  if  they  would  not 
like  to  take  some.  There  is  a  fair  understanding  be- 
tween us.  You  may  meet  me  and  travel  with  me  all 
day,  and  I  won't  bother  you ;  but  whenever  you  want 
me,  and  will  give  me  the  least  hint,  you  will  find  me 
right  there,  ready  to  talk,  and  help,  and  do  everything  I 
can  for  you."  That  understanding  changed  our  relations 
at  once.  Thus  the  most  perfect  freedom  was  established 
between  us,  and  now,  if  they  want  anything,  they  come 
to  me  without  the  least  hesitation,  and  I  never  pursue 
them.  I  do  not  lay  down  this  as  a  rule  in  reference  to 
prayer,  because  there  are  some  men  who  have  an  art 
of  pursuing  people  which  is  blessed  of  God,  and  which 
is  natural  to  them.  There  are  some  persons  who  will 
go  into  a  family,  and  at  once  say,  The  Lord  be  with 
you  !  "  and  everybody  feels  at  once  that  it  is  the  natu- 
ral thing  to  say.  I  could  no  more  do  Vj  than  I  could 
go  in  and  enunciate  a  proposition  out  of  Euclid,  —  and 
that  is  an  absolute  impossibility. 

Q.  In  regard  to  the  relation  of  the  Sabbath-school  to  the 
church,  a  matter  which  has  often  been  discussed  here,  should  the 
Sabbath  school  be  a  part  of  the  church,  or  should  it  be  a  separate 
organization  ? 

Mr.  Beecher.  —  The  question  never  came  up  with 
us.  We  never  let  it  come  up.  As  far  as  possible, 
I  always  sought  to  let  the  Sunday-school  have  its 
own  autonomy.  I  have  avoided,  in  all '  my  ministry, 
the  exercise  of  authority.  I  have  refused  author- 
ity in  order  that  I  might  have  influence,  which  is  a 
great  deal  better.    There  is  nothing  that  I  want  in  my 


DEVELOPMENT  OF  SOCIAL  ELEMENTS.  175 

parish  which,  if  they  find  it  out,  is  not  done  instantly ; 
but  I  avoid  letting  them  know  it  if  I  possibly  can. 
If  they  are  to  elect  a  superintendent,  unless  it  is  a 
critical  case,  I  refuse  to  do  anything  about  it.    I  say, 

You  are  competent ;  do  it  yourselves."  I  have  re- 
fused to  have  any  secret  councils  with  my  own  mem- 
bers. I  have  refused  to  lay  any  pipe  whatsoever  in 
respect  to  church  affairs.  I  say  to  them,  "  I  feel  that 
I  stand  four-square  here  among  you.  I  am  a  member 
in  the  church ;  I  am  not  a  dictator.  Because  I  am  a 
pastor,  I  am  not  a  master.  You  shall  not  make  me 
budge  an  inch  from  my  place,  nor  will  I  attempt  to 
make  you  budge  an  inch  from  your  place."  So  per- 
fectly amicable  relations  have  always  subsisted,  and  we 
have  never,  during  a  pastorate  of  nearly  twenty-six 
years,  during  the  stormiest  periods  that  any  nation 
ever  went  through,  amidst  questions  that  have  agitated 
the  community  so  that  it  was  red-hot,  —  there  has 
never  been  any  difficulty  in  my  church  that  I  have  had 
to  call  my  deacons  together  to  settle,  or  a  difficulty  of 
any  description  whatever. 

Q.  What  is  the  best  visitation  ? 

Mr.  Beecher.  —  The  best  of  all  visitation  is  that 
which  is  casual  and  on  purpose,  —  that  which  is  ap- 
parently off-handed  in  the  freedom  of  casual  visita- 
tion, but  which  in  your  own  secret  mind  forms  a 
part  of  the  system  by  which  you  go  through  your  whole 
parish.  But,  young  gentlemen,  a  man  has  a  right  first 
to  the  visitation  of  the  family  where  his  own  soul  is 
fed.  You  have  a  right  to  your  own  society,  and  a 
minister  ought  to  be  jealous  of  that.  If  the  whole 
parish  are  jealous  because  you  visit  in  two  or  three 


176 


LECTURES  ON  PkEACHllSfa. 


families  for  your  own  sake,  stand  your  ground.  You 
have  as  much  right  to  your  friendships  as  they  have  to 
theirs.  It  is  not  necessary  for  you  to  give  up  your 
manhood  in  order  to  please  them,  if  they  are  wrong. 

Then  there  should  be  visitation  amongst  those  that 
need  it  the  most.  Begin  at  the  bottom  and  go  up,  and, 
if  anybody  is  to  be  neglected,  let  it  be  the  rich  and 
those  that  are  intelligent.  In  other  words,  the  more 
highly  organized  families  are  able  to  get  along  with- 
out you,  except  so  far  as  friendship  is  concerned.  I 
know  dozens  of  families  in  my  parish,  —  yes,  I  may 
say  a  great  many  more,  —  in  wliich  the  average  intelli- 
gence and  the  average  spirituality  are  far  greater  than 
the  average  intelligence  and  spirituality  of  the  whole 
church,  —  families  that  are  churches  above  churches, 
as  it  were.  Now,  it  is  very  pleasant  for  you  to  go 
there  by  elective  affinities.  Yet  they  are  the  ones  to 
neglect,  if  anybody  is  to  be  neglected.  Take  care  of 
the  widow,  the  orphan,  the  unfriended.  If  a  man 
is  under  a  cloud,  go  to  him.  If  a  man  fails  in  business, 
and  the  tongues  of  all  men  are  against  him,  do  you  be 
right  by  his  side  and  say  to  him,  "  Now,  let  me  hold 
you  up  ;  I  don't  want  to  ask  any  questions  or  to  have 
you  say  anything,  but  here  I  am  ;  by  and  by,  when 
you  want  me  to  say  or  to  do,  here  I  am."  Go  down  into 
the  deep  waters  with  people,  and  be  all  the  time  look- 
ing out  for  the  people  toward  whom  you  are  to  act  the 
part  of  the  chivalric  man.  Take  the  weak  side,  and 
keep  on  the  weak  side  all  the  time. 

Q.  Should  the  apparent  proximate  object  of  visitation  be  sim- 
ply to  cultivate  good  feeling  between  you  and  those  families,  or  to 
exert  a  direct  religious  influence  ? 


DEVELOPMENT  OF  SOCIAL  ELEMENTS. 


177 


Mr.  Beecher.  —  Both,  sir.  If,  in  the  community 
where  you  live,  you  are  among  a  flood  of  magazines  and 
newspapers,  and  the  intelligence  of  the  community  is 
as  great  or  perhaps  greater  than  yours,  it  would  be  like 
carrying  coals  to  Newcastle  to  go  into  a  family  and 
try  to  instruct  its  members.  But  you  might  go  into 
another  family,  where  they  did  not  know  the  news, 
and  then  it  would  be  a  mistake  if  you  did  not  im- 
part information  to  them.  But  adapt  yourself  with- 
out routine,  without  an  absolute,  stiff'  rule,  to  the  exi- 
gency. When  a  man  goes  out  for  botany,  and  sees  a 
hollyhock,  and  puts  his  hand  up  and  picks  it,  and  sees 
another  flower  down  there,  and  stoops  down  and  picks 
it,  he  does  not  have  a  rule  to  pick  flowers  in  any  par- 
ticular w^ay. 

Q.  What  do  you  do  when  you  go  into  a  family,  and  the 
mother  is  desirous  to  show  off  the  excellences  of  her  daughter 
on  the  "  planner,"  as  she  calls  it,  and  is  full  of  pride  in  her  little 
ones,  —  what  do  you  do  ?  Are  n't  you  tried  sometimes  ? 

Mr.  Beegher.  —  Well,  sir,  my  Master  carried  his 
people's  sins  and  their  burdens,  and  I  try  to  carry  my 
people's  too.  I  do  not  know  that  the  pianos  are  so 
trying  to  me  as  the  pictures  are.  But,  above  all  other 
things,  it  is  the  babies,  the  prodigies,  that  I  have  in  my 
parish !  I  do  not  know  that  you  ever  had  them,  but 
there  are  born  unto  us  children  that  are  immense,  won- 
derful !  These,  however,  are  little  infirmities  in  people. 
I  sometimes  think,  while  we  look  upon  them,  and  mark 
them,  and  amuse  ourselves  over  them,  that  we  have 
never  had  a  chance  to  look  into  the  note-book  of  the 
angels,  to  see  what  they  thought  of  us.  My  impression 
is  that,  if  we  could  get  the  notion  of  superior  beings 

8*  li 


178 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


as  to  the  thousand  things  that  they  see  in  us  grown 
folks,  we  should  find  that  we  are  more  childish  in 
their  sight  than  children  are  in  ours.  At  any  rate, 
there  are  a  thousand  considerations  that  should  cause 
us  to  be  very  patient  and  to  put  the  best  face  on  those 
things  ;  only  doiit  tell  lies.  Dr.  Humphrey  was  told 
by  a  lady,  Doctor,  you  know  that  mothers  think  very 
much  of  their  babies,  but  I  have  one  that  I  think  is  a 
paragon."  "  I  don't  doubt  it,  ma'am,"  said  he.  "  I  have 
eight  just  such  at  home." 

Q.  Did  you  mean  to  have  us  understand,  in  some  of  your 
remarks  a  little  while  ago,  that  children  from  nine  to  twelve 
years  of  age  were  not  often  true  Christians,  worshiping  God  in 
spirit  and  in  truth  V 

Mr,  Beecher.  —  Oh  !  far  from  that.  1  believe  that 
children  worship  God  at  four  and  five  years  of  age. 
I  believe  there  never  will  be  a  conversion  of  this 
world  until  the  cradles  are  the  sanctuaries.  We  have 
got  to  bring  children  up  in  the  "  nurture  and  admoni- 
tion of  the  Lord "  ;  this  transplanting  of  old  trees  is 
better  than  nothing,  but  that  is  all  that  can  be  said 
of  it. 


YII. 


BIBLE  -  CLASSES  —  MISSION  SCHOOLS  —  LAY 
WOEK. 


church,  and  of  Young  Men's  Associations,  —  all  of 
them  very  nearly  connected,  though  their  names  would 
seem  to  put  them  at  some  distance  apart. 

There  never  was  a  time,  I  think,  in  which  there  was 
so  much  direct  and  indirect  movement,  from  so  many 
sources,  against  the  sacred  books  which  we  call  the 
Bible,  as  there  is  to-day.  There  was  never  so  much 
effectually  said  against  them,  which  every  honest  man 
ought  to  hear.  And  yet  I  think  there  never  was 
a  time  when  the  Bible  in  its  main  objects  and  ends 
was  so  inexpugnable,  so  superior  to  criticism,  and  so 
manifestly  admirable,  as  to-day.  That  is  to  say,  while 
you  may  find  fault  with  the  time  element,  the  mere 
external  vehicle  by  which  truth  has  been  conveyed  ; 
while  you  may  find  some  disagreements  of  dates,  or 
some  erroneous  historical  statements,  or  the  like,  —  yet, 


ONTINUING  the  general  subject  of  the 
social  forces  of  the  church,  I  shall  to-day 
speak  especially  of  Bible-Classes,  of  Mis- 
sion Schools,  of  the  Lay  Element  in  the 


180 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


when  you  consider  the  end  which  the  Scriptures  have 
in  view,  namely,  the  formation  of  perfect  manhood  in 
Christ  Jesus,  science  has  not  touched  the  Scriptures, 
except  to  illustrate  and  to  fortify  them.  For  example, 
there  is  not  a  single  element  in  them  that  goes  to  con- 
stitute social  or  civil  morality,  that  has  been  set  aside 
either  by  any  experience  or  by  any  scientific  deduction. 
The  Book  of  Proverbs,  although  its  aim  is  comparatively 
not  high,  yet,  considered  as  a  resultant  of  observation 
and  experience  in  the  ethical  relations  of  society,  is 
just  as  applicable  to-day  as  in  the  hour  when  it  was 
issued.  If  there  has  been  any  effect  produced  by  the 
immense  revolutions  and  changes  which  have  gone  on 
in  the  world,  it  has  been  to  brighten  the  sentences,  and 
make  them  clearer. 

If  you  go  higher  than  mere  ethics,  you  cannot  find 
a  single  thing  that  Scripture  has  pronounced  evil,  that 
has  since  been  shown  to  be  good,  or  that  by  any  modi- 
fication pould  be  made  good.  You  cannot  find  a  single 
virtue  that  is  admired  and  highly  extolled  in  Scrip- 
ture, that  has  been  shown  in  the  development  of  man 
and  in  the  process  of  scientific  investigation  to  be 
other  than  a  virtue.  You  cannot  find  that  the  scrip- 
tural ideal  of  Christian  character  has  been  in  any  part 
impaired.  It  never  stood  so  high  as  to-day.  Never 
was  there  a  need  more  apparent  (and,  I  think,  soon 
to  be  universally  felt),  of  the  contact  of  the  soul  of  man 
with  God's,  for  the  sake  of  developing  its  higher  and  re- 
straining its  low^er  powers.  So  that  if  the  Word  of  God 
be  considered  simply  as  a  guide-book  to  manhood,  and 
through  manhood  to  immortality  and  blessedness,  it 
stands  unchanged  and  unshaken  to-day. 


BIBLE-CLASSES  —  MISSION  SCHOOLS  —  LAY  WORK.  181 

Now,  the  teaching  of  that  book  —  while  it  has,  per- 
haps, been  taught  too  narrowly  and  literally,  and  there 
is  room  for  improvement  in  our  methods  of  study  — 
was  never  more  important  in  the  training  of  the 
church,  in  the  cultivation  and  direction  of  its  resources, 
than  it  is  to-day. 

IMPORTANCE  OF  BIBLE-CLASSES. 

The  matter  of  Bible-classes  is  a  very  difficult  one  to 
manage.  But  the  outcome  is  so  admirable  that  every 
pastor  should  find  some  way  to  manage  them,  and  to 
make  them  a  working  part  in  the  life  of  the  church 
which  he  supervises.  We  are  not  to  allow  the  vast 
flood  of  literature,  the  immense  increase  and  populari- 
zation of  what  may  be  called  solid  learning,  especially 
the  exceedingly  interesting  and  growing  developments 
of  natural  science,  to  draw  away,  as  they  are  now 
tending  to  do,  the  minds  of  the  young.  Our  houses 
have  libraries  as  they  had  not  formerly,  and  our  young 
people  have  a  good  deal  more  to  read.  When  as  a 
child  I  was,  for  any  reason,  shut  up  at  home  half  a  day 
on  Sunday,  I  was  not  allowed  to  read  "  Eobinson  Cru- 
soe." I  had  Little  Henry  and  his  Bearer,"  and  "  Pil- 
grim's Progress,"  and  some  of  Hannah  More's  works, 
as  well  as  a  few  moral  treatises,  which,  if  one  began 
to  read,  he  would  retreat  from  them  into  the  Bible, 
quick !  These  were  about  the  whole  of  my  literature, 
and  the  Bible  was,  after  all,  the  most  interesting  book 
in  the  house. 

But  now  the  Sunday-school  library  has  opened  upon 
the  children  a  flood,  or  rather  a  swarm,  that  can  some^ 
times  be  compared  to  little  else  than  the  locusts,  the 


182 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


lice,  and  the  frogs  of  Egypt.  There  is,  I  think,  an 
immense  amount  of  wishy-washy  stuff,  wrought  to- 
gether with  a  certain  sort  of  fictitious  and  unwhole- 
some interest,  and  eagerly  taken  in  by  children.  The 
most  difficult  book  in  the  world  to  write,  is  a  book  for 
a  child ;  yet  it  is  upon  this  that  everybody  thinks  he 
can  begin  his  literary  career.  And  so  we  are  in  danger 
of  being  carried  away  by  what  may  be  called  the  "  swill 
of  the  house  of  God." 

STUDYING  THE  BIBLE  AS  A  WHOLE. 

1  or  all  these  reasons,  the  intrinsic  value  of  the  Bible, 
the  wide  discussion  going  on  about  it,  the  multiplicity 
of  literary  works  and  of  religious  works,  called  so  by 
courtesy,  —  for  all  these  reasons,  it  is  very  important 
that  in  every  church  there  should  be  great  attention 
paid  to  the  study  of  the  Scriptures  for  their  own  sake. 
Bible-classes  are  next  to  the  pulpit,  and  are  some- 
times even  far  more  educating  than  the  pulpit  itself. 
A  Bible-class,  if  properly  trained,  may  at  last  reach  al- 
most every  question  that  ever  enters  the  minister's  own 
study.  I  think  it  very  desirable  that  the  whole  struc- 
ture and  genius  of  the  Bible  should  be  studied,  aside 
from  its  essential  contents.  The  prevalent  infidelity 
and  doubt,  the  sneers  that  are  thrown  at  sacred  things, 
the  talk  that  men  hear  of  discords  in  the  Bible,  under- 
mine the  confidence  of  a  great  many  persons  unneces- 
sarily.  I  know  of  but  one  remedy,  and  that  is  a  clear, 
bold  study  of  the  thing  itself.  If  there  were  a  man  in 
my  parish  who  was  an  acute  infidel,  I  would  secure  his 
presence  in  the  class,  if  I  had  nobody  else.  I  would 
show  the  young  people  of  my  parish  either  that  the 


BIBLE-CLASSES  —  MISSION  SCHOOLS  —  LAY  WORK.  18o 

difficulties  were  only  apparent,  and  were  solvable,  or 
else  that  they  so  inhere  in  the  infinite  nature  of  the 
subjects  discussed  as  to  belong  to  all  views  of  those 
subjects,  whether  religious  or  not.  At  any  rate,  T 
would  produce  the  impression  either  that  the  infidel 
objections  were  not  true,  or  that  the  trouble  lay  in  my 
own  ignorance  and  incapacity  to  answer.  But  to  leave 
the  impression  in  the  community  that  the  minister  has 
got  his  church  around  him,  and  is  cuddled  there,  and  that 
it  is  his  professional  interest  to  stand  up  for  his  book, 
and  that  his  book  is  susceptible  of  being  riddled  if  you 
could  only  get  fair  play  at  it,  —  if  you  allow  this,  you 
produce  latent  scepticism  throughout  your  congregation. 
Therefore,  have  courage,  and  allow  fair  discussion.  Let 
in  light,  let  in  air.  If  there  is  any  book  that  will  bear 
it,  it  is  the  Bible.  I  think,  therefore,  that  the  dis- 
cussion of  the  structure  of  the  Scriptures,  the  nature 
of  inspiration,  —  its  metes  and  bounds  and  varieties, 
and  the  inferences  deducible  from  it,  —  all  these  ques- 
tions, which  are  to-day  so  much  in  the  very  air,  you 
must  meet.  If  you  do  not  go  to  meet  them,  they  will 
come  and  take  you  captive. 

VARIOUS  METHODS  OF  BIBLE  STUDY. 

Consider  also  the  Scriptures  from  beginning  to  end, 
taking  them  as  a  matter  of  history  and  as  a  matter 
of  literature,  following  the  text  seriatim.  (I  am  speak- 
ing of  different  methods  in  Bible-classes,  of  which  some- 
times one,  sometimes  the  other,  is  to  be  taken.)  Or, 
instead  of  taking  the  Evangelists  in  course,  and  then 
some  of  the  letters  of  Paul  or  John,  men  might  take, 
in  the  course  of  the  Bible-classes,  such  topics  as  the 


184 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


great  questions  of  conscience ;  the  questions  of  faith, 
courtesy,  hope,  love,  temper,  selfishness,  disinterest- 
edness, and  a  thousand  subjects  of  that  kind.  That 
is,  events  that  are  occurring  in  the  community,  the 
thousand  ethical  difficulties  or  incidents  that  come  up 
in  daily  life  in  the  community,  might  be  considered  in 
their  relation  to  the  Scriptures,  you  yourself  being  all 
the  time  the  guide  and  director ;  so  that,  in  one  way  or 
another,  you  will  have  pretty  much  the  whole  course 
of  life  brought  out  in  the  most  familiar  way  in  the 
Bible-class.  You  will  be  able,  in  this  way,  to  touch 
elements  that  no  man  can  reach  in  a  sermon. 

ADVANTAGE  OF  PERSONAL  TEACHING. 

"When  I  was  in  Birmingham,  I  went  in  to  see  how 
they  manufactured  papier-mache,  and  I  saw  the  vast 
machinery  and  the  various  methods  by  which  it  was 
blocked  out  and  made.  I  watched  the  various  pro- 
cesses from  room  to  room,  until  I  came  to  the  last, 
where  is  given  the  finishing  touch,  the  final  polish. 
They  told  me  that  they  had  tried  everything  in  the 
world  for  polishing,  and  at  last  had  been  convinced 
that  there  was  nothing  like  the  human  hand.  There 
was  no  leather  or  other  substance  that  they  could  get 
hold  of,  that  had  such  power  to  polish  to  the  very 
finest  smoothness,  as  this  living  leather  in  its  vital 
state,  —  the  human  hand.  It  is  very  much  so  with 
people.  You  can  teach  them  from  the  pulpit  in  cer- 
tain large  ways,  but  there  are  some  things  that  you 
cannot  do  except  by  putting  your  very  hand  on  them 
and  working  them  down,  polishing  them  off  by  hand. 
In  the  Bible-class,  where  all  sorts  of  questions  and 


BIBLE  CLASSES  —  MISSION  SCHOOLS  —  LAY  WORK.  185 

thoughts  and  feelings  come  out,  and  where  various 
tastes  lead  to  all  sorts  of  matters,  you  can  put  your 
hand  out  and  bring  the  truth  into  all  crevices,  nooks, 
and  corners  of  human  thought  and  feeling  and  imagina- 
tion, as  you  cannot  do  in  a  sermon. 

Of  course,  it  will  require  on  your  part  no  small 
range  of  knowledge.  He  that  knows  the  Bible  well 
knows  pretty  much  all  the  world,  not  in  the  more 
modern  developments  and  disclosures,  but  in  ancient 
history,  ethnography,  geography;  in  a  thousand  questions 
of  manners  and  customs,  of  ethics,  of  equities,  of  gen- 
eral law  and  legislation.  All  these  come  into  the  illus- 
tration of  Scripture ;  and  a  minister  that  carries  on  a 
Bible-class, — a  live  one, — and  has  in  it  people  who  have 
heads,  and  are  not  afraid  to  speak,  will  find  that  he 
has  to  use  his  study  abundantly.  I  should  not  wonder 
if  you  found  that,  for  years,  in  the  beginning  of  your 
ministry,  the  Bible-class  taxed  you  with  more  study 
than  your  sermons.  But  it  is  worth  the  cost.  Your 
people  will  be  rooted  and  grounded  in  the  truth,  when 
that  truth  has  been  derived  from  the  direct  study  of 
the  Word  of  God.  Truth  will  have  to  them  a  vitality 
and  an  authority  which  it  cannot  have  when  it  comes 
from  you,  even  under  the  most  favorable  circumstances. 

In  the  institution  and  conduct  of  the  Bible-class,  one 
of  the  difficulties  to  be  overcome,  after  the  listlessness 
and  general  indifference  have  passed  away,  will  be  a 
controversial  spirit,  which  will  often  rise  up,  especially 
when  you  have  persons  who  have  been  catecheti- 
cally  instructed.  Almost  invariably,  the  questions  put 
at  first  are  out-of-the-way  questions  of  mere  curiosity, 
and  of  no  value  ;  or  else  there  will  be  questions  of 


186 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


abstract  moral  government.  Men  will  want  to  go  at 
once  right  into  Decrees,  Foreordination,  Election,  Repro- 
bation, or  something  of  that  sort,  and  you  will  have  to 
guard  your  Bible-class  from  the  tendency  to  purely  intel- 
lectual debating.  For,  while  doctrinal  discussion  ought 
to  be  in  order,  and  it  is  worth  whi^e  to  make  pro- 
vision for  the  discussion  of  such  questions  by  them- 
selves, when  you  can  lay  out  the  subject,  and  invite 
questions,  and  be  prepared  to  go  into  the  whole  mat- 
ter, yet,  when  a  class  has  been  instituted  for  all  sorts' 
of  people,  it  is  very  unwise  to  let  it  take  on  a  con- 
troversial habit.  Now,  there  is  a  difficulty  here.  I 
have  a  man  who  is  active,  self-sacrificing,  excellent,  and 
who  works  among  the  poor  all  the  time ;  but  his  ideas 
are  very  curious,  and  he  is  incisive  in  his  thought,  and 
at  every  teachers'  meeting  he  wants  to  put  questions 
on  passages  of  Scripture  and  carry  the  meeting  off  into 
philosophical  discussion.  Now,  the  object  of  the  head 
of  the  school  is  to  prepare  his  teachers  to  edify  their 
scholars,  and  he  does  not  wish  to  invite  doctrinal  dis- 
quisition, or  to  become  an  antagonist ;  and  yet,  to  stop 
that  man's  mouth  looks  very  much  as  if  he  were  afraid 
to  defend  his  own  ground,  or  as  if  he  did  not  want  free 
discussion.  It  will  require  a  good  deal  of  wisdom  and 
tact  and  management  to  go  right.  One  way  to  meet 
the  case  is  to  come  to  a  fair  understanding  with  the 
person,  by  personal  conversation  wdth  him.  There  are 
a  great  many  men  that  will  help  you,  if  you  confide 
in  them ;  but  if  you  do  not,  they  will  hinder  you.  If 
there  were  half  a  dozen  of  this  kind,  I  should  call  them 
together  in  my  study,  and  say  to  them :  Now,  gentle- 
men, you  are  acute,  I  see ;  your  minds  are  active,  aud 


BIBLE-CLASSES  —  MISSION  SCHOOLS — LAY  WORK.  187 


you  have  a  great  deal  of  curiosity  on  this  or  that  sub- 
ject. I  want  to  do  so  and  so  with  my  Bible-class. 
This  is  my  plan,  and  I  want  your  help.  I  will  agree, 
as  far  as  in  me  lies,  to  meet  your  desires.  I  will  have 
other  meetings,  which  shall  be  especially  for  discussion, 
and  you  shall  have  free  range ;  but  in  these  others  I 
want  you  to  help,  and  not  hinder  me."  Thus  1  throw 
myself  on  their  confidence  and  honor.  Most  men  that 
'would  come  to  a  Bible-class  at  all 'would  respond  to 
such  an  appeal  as  that,  and  would  help  you.  But 
don't  set  up  your  authority.  Don't  use  your  spiritual 
bludgeon.  Don't  say  to  a  man,  "  Sit  down,  sir  ! "  Don't 
ridicule  a  man,  or  shut  up  his  mouth  by  authority, 
because  you  are  a  minister.  It  is  the  worst  possible 
policy.  No  policy  will  surely  keep  you  out  of  difficul- 
ties, young  gentlemen.  I  don't  care  how  much  you 
know  beforehand  of  management,  you  have  all  of  you 
got  to  carry  burdens  ;  you  have  got  to  learn  a  good  deal 
by  failures,  stumbling,  and  falling  into  pit-holes.  I  only 
give  you  a  few  hints  and  suggestions  as  to  these  things, 
leaving  you  to  use  your  good  sense  in  extricating  your- 
selves from  the  difficulties  which  you  will  find  in  carry- 
ing on  a  successful  Bible-class. 

Now,  allow  ine  to  say,  I  have  found  in  my  ministry 
much  benefit  from  the  Bible-class,  —  more  benefit,  in 
many  respects,  than  from  anything  else.  In  my  own 
early  ministry,  instead  of  having  a  Bible-class,  —  for  I 
had  not  good  material  to  work  into  one,  —  I  lectured 
on  the  Bible.  I  took  up  the  Scriptures  seriatim.  The 
whole  of  the  New  Testament  I  went  through  by  lec- 
tures. I  think  I  have  now,  somewhere  on  my  shelves 
at  home,  the  lectures  I  prepared  thirty  years  ago,  in 


188 


LECTURES  ON  PKEACHING. 


which  I  went  over  pretty  much  the  whole  of  the  New 
Testament,  chapter  by  chapter,  verse  by  verse.  I  asked 
for  questions,  sometimes  provoked  questions,  but  mainly 
I  expounded  the  Scriptures  myself.  Circumstances 
were  such,  in  my  early  ministry,  as  to  make  this  course 
desirable.  During  my  settlement  in  Brooklyn,  I  have 
had  so  much  preaching  to  do,  and  have  had  so  many 
helpers  raised  up  around  me,  that  I  have  been  able  to 
put  this  work  upon  others  ;  and  the  Bible-classes,  which 
have  been  a  constituent  part  of  our  school  system,  have 
been  more  blessed  than  almost  any  other  part  of  the 
labor  in  our  church.  We  have  three  Sunday-schools,  — 
the  Home  School,  the  Bethel,  and  the  Plymouth  Mis- 
sion. In  the  Home  School,  we  have  about  ei^iit  or 
nine  hundred  children,  and  from  a  hundred  and  fifty  to 
two  hundred  young  men  over  fifteen  years  of  age.  In 
the  Bethel  we  have  about  one  thousand  scholars,  and 
in  the  Bible-class  about  two  hundred  married  men  ;  also 
a  class  of  married  women,  of  about  one  hundred  or  one 
hundred  and  fifty.  In  the  Plymouth  Mission,  tliere  are 
four  or  five  hundred  scholars,  and  nearly  one  hundred 
in  the  Bible-classes.  The  admissions  to  the  church- 
membership  have  ranged  from  a  hundred  to  two  hun- 
dred and  fifty  or  three  hundred  ;  and  probably  from 
one  third  to  one  half  of  them  have  been  by  conversions 
from  the  world ;  and  I  may  say  four  fifths  of  them  have 
come  through  the  Sunday-schools  and  the  Bible-classes. 
So  that  the  body  of  the  members  who  have  been 
brought  in  have  been  trained,  and  brought  to  a  per- 
sonal avowal  of  a  religious  faith  and  an  entrance  upon 
a  religious  life,  by  the  influence  of  the  Bible-class. 
This  Bible-class  of  married  men  is  a  phenomenon. 


BIBLE-CLASSES  —  MISSION  SCHOOLS  —  LAY  WORK.  189 

The  gentleman  who  teaches  it  was  a  soldier;  who  lost 
his  arm  in  the  service.  He  is  singularly  well  fitted  for 
this  work.  He  had  a  large  number  of  poor,  plain,  but 
excellent  men;  but  they  were  not  all  such.  He  has 
gathered  up  from  the  street  the  degraded,  the  literally 
lost.  At  first  his  class  was  small,  — nine  or  ten  ;  but  he 
worked  with  them  faithfully,  and  set  them  to  gathering 
up  their  abandoned  companions.  Among  those  brought 
in  were  drunkards,  pimps,  the  most  degraded  and  de- 
spicable. There  were  men  that  by  their  careless  habits 
had  wasted  their  earnings  and  disbanded  their  families. 
Some  of  them  were  living  in  filth  and  vice,  and  some  in 
crime.  And  yet,  last  January,  about  a  hundred  of  these 
men  came  up  in  a  body  and  called  upon  me,  and  a  better  ^ 
looking  set  of  men  I  never  beheld.  They  were  clothed 
and  in  their  right  mind.  We  received  at  one  time  some 
forty  into  the  church,  out  of  this  body  of  men;  and  one 
of  the  most  affecting  things  I  know  of  is  that  this  class, 
two  or  three  times  a  year,  gives  an  entertainment  to 
all  the  parents  of  the  children  in  the  Bethel  Mission. 
They  give  it  themselves.  We  furnish  the  room  and 
lights,  but  they  order  a  supper,  with  cake,  confections, 
ice-cream,  tea,  and  coffee.  They  have  music,  and  also 
some  little  amusement  —  tableaux,  or  something  of  the 
kind  —  got  up  for  them.  They  invite  all  the  fathers 
and  mothers  of  the  children  in  the  Bethel  Mission. 
Each  of  the  members  of  the  Bible-class  wears  his  little 
rosette  to  show  he  is  a  manager,  and  each  one  is  ex- 
pected to  be  on  the  floor  to  entertain  the  guests  and  to 
see  that  every  one  is  happy,  comfortable,  talked  to,  and 
fed.  To  see  these  hundred  and  fifty  men,  —  one  of 
whom  said,  in  relai^ing  his  experience,  "  I  know  all 


190 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


about  rum.  I  have  made  it,  I  have  sold  it,  and  I 
have  drunk  it  to  the  very  uttermost,"  —  to  see  such 
men  in  the  house  of  God,  entertainers,  calling  in  the 
parents  of  the  poor  wandering  children,  is  enough  to 
make  tears  come  from  anybody's  eyes. 

I  don't  believe  you  ever  could  have  reached  those 
men  except  by  taking  the  Word  of  God  in  your  hand, 
calling  them  together  in  a  place  where  they  felt  at 
home,  and  then  going  step  by  step  with  them  through  the 
truth,  teaching  them  Sunday  after  Sunday ;  and,  while 
you  are  doing  this,  calling  out  their  sympathies,  making 
them  work  for  each  other,  —  for  that  is  what  this  class 
is  still  doing,  —  one  here  and  one  there,  raising  contri- 
butions by  which  they  are  able  to  sustain  men  and  get 
them  on  their  feet  till  they  can  get  work  again.  There 
have  been  literally  hundreds  of  families  regathered. 

I  have  one  teacher  in  my  Home  School,  —  I  should 
be  within  bounds  if  I  should  say  that  in  ten  years  he 
has  been  the  instrument  of  converting  one  hundred  and 
fifty  young  men,  and  chiefly  by  the  application  of  the 
truth  as  it  is  in  Jesus,  in  the  Bible-class  ;  and  I  have 
found  that,  while  our  Sunday-schools  are  greatly  blessed, 
there  has  been  no  other  agency  employed  in  our  church 
that  is  comparable  to  our  Bible-classes  for  adults,  young 
men  and  old. 

CAUSE  or  THE  PROSPERITY  OF  PLYMOUTH  CHURCH. 

The  history  of  Plymouth  Church,  as  viewed,  would 
seem  to  be  a  history  of  excitement  and  curiosity.  The 
reason  of  the  prosperity  of  that  church  has  been  simply 
the  abundant,  continuous,  faithful,  humble  working  of 
the  members  of  the  church,  year  after  year.    There  is 


MBLE-CLASSES  —  MISSION  SCHOOLS — LAY  WORK.  l9l 


an  immense  amount  of  life  among  the  members.  They 
are  seeking  to  follow  Christ  in  a  humble,  working 
spirit,  and  that  has  made  the  history  of  the  church. 

MISSION  SCHOOLS. 

A  few  words  on  the  subject  of  mission  schools. 
These  are  highly  desirable  in  large  cities,  where  so 
many  of  the  neighborhoods  are  neglected,  and  are  not 
able  to  support  a  church.  Such  neighborhoods  can  be 
better  reached  under  the  Methodist  system  than  under 
our  own,  unless  we  employ  some  such  auxiliaries  as 
mission  schools.  I  regard  mission  schools  as  the  tenders 
of  the  fleet.  Our  churches  are  men-of-war ;  our  mission 
schools  are  little  steam-yachts  that  these  men-of-war 
send  out  into  the  shallower  waters,  or  where  they  can- 
not go.  Every  city  church  ought  to  have  one  or  two 
chickens  of  this  kind  under  its  wing. 

WHERE  TO  ESTABLISH  MISSIONS. 

There  are,  in  the  establishment  of  these  mission 
schools,  two  or  three  principles  that  I  think  should  be 
borne  in  mind  as  the  foundations  of  all  success.  First, 
a  mission  school  ought  not,  in  my  judgment,  to  be 
placed  in  a  slum.  If  you  are  going  into  neighborhoods 
where  there  is  degradation  and  vice,  and  all  manner  of 
nastiness  and  rottenness,  it  is  not  best  to  preach  the 
gospel  there  permanently.  Go  in  to  them,  and  visit 
them ;  but  if  you  are  to  establish  an  institution,  draw 
people  out  of  the  midst  of  that  miry  pit  on  to  the  edge 
of  virtue  and  neatness  and  order.  It  will  be  easier  to 
draw  people  out  of  disorder  up  to  the  borders  of  order, 
than  to  teach  them  in  the  midst  of  their  disorder. 


192 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


There  is  something  in  going  out  of  their  ill-ventilated 
houses,  their  unlighted,  dirty  streets,  up  to  a  place 
which  is  quiet,  which  has  some  element  of  beauty 
about  it.  It  becomes  attractive  to  them,  and  they  will 
like  to  do  it,  provided  they  think  the  place  is  still  within 
easy  reach,  and  is  their  own. 

THE  SCHOOL  NOT  TO  BECOME  A  CHURCH. 

Next,  I  affirm  that  a  mission  school,  as  a  general 
thing,  should  remain  a  mission  school.  I  refuse  utterly 
to  allow  any  of  our  schools  to  be  nascent  churches. 
Not  that  it  may  not  be  a  good  way  to  send  out  a  school, 
and  thus  prepare  the  way  for  a  church.  There  are 
many  cases  in  which  that  is  a  proper  thing  to  do.  But 
ordinarily,  in  outlying  neglected  neighborhoods,  mission 
schools  are  better  for  the  people  than  churches  ;  for  this 
reason,  that  they  really  are  churches  in  the  primitive 
sense  of  the  term,  and  that  the  mode  of  instruction 
obtaining  there  is  better  adapted  to  the  wants  of  that 
class  of  people  than  is  the  instruction  which  they 
would  be  likely  to  get  in  a  church  of  the  ordinary  pat- 
tern. Our  churches  tend  to  extinguish  sociality.  Their 
congregations  are  respectable.  They  rise  high  in  many 
elements ;  but  the  low,  the  poor,  the  ignorant,  the 
vicious,  are  not  susceptible  yet  of  these  higher  things. 
Where  they  are  brought  into  our  churches,  they  are 
lonesome,  they  are  little  interested,  and  are  very  soon 
left  behind.  But  if  you  send  intelligent  men  and 
women  down  into  their  midst  to  put  them  into  classes, 
and  then  to  do  the  work  face  to  face,  looking  to  the  in- 
dividual man,  calling  him  by  name,  going  over  to  where 
you  can  lay  your  hand  on  him,  you  are  rubbing  in 


BIBLE-CLASSES  —  MISSION  SCHOOLS  —  LAY  WORK.  19:.) 

the  truth  in  a  manner  that  just  suits  his  unsusceptible 
nature.  You  are  giving  to  each  man  as  he  needs,  not 
comprehensively  as  a  whole  congregation  needs. 

BENEFIT  TO  TEACHERS. 

There  is  another  reason.  I  regard  these  mission 
schools  as  the  nurseries  for  training  the  teachers  them- 
selves. All  the  good  we  have  done  to  the  poor  and 
ignorant  in  Brooklyn  is  not  comparable  with  that  which 
has  been  done  to  my  own  people  in  the  process.  It 
would  be  enough,  if  only  this  one  thing  had  fallen  out, 
that  the  young  men  and  women  in  my  parish  had  been 
for  years  and  years  giving  some  of  their  best  time,  their 
best  thoughts,  their  freshest  hours,  their  sweetest  en- 
thusiasm, their  most  disinterested  charities.  They  have 
gone  down  into  the  field  and  made  the  work  of  taking 
care  of  these  men  their  own  work.  There  are,  and  have 
been,  many  children  of  wealth  and  culture  engaged  in 
this  mission  work,  who  give  up  to  it  not  only  hours  in 
each  single  day,  meeting  in  council,  —  meeting  in  little 
evening  parties  that  have  been  arranged  for  this  pu,- 
pose,  —  but  pretty  nearly  the  whole  of  their  Sunday, 
except  the  hour  of  our  morning  service  ;  and  who 
carry  this  on  for  five  or  ten  years,  —  fascinated  with  it, 
I  might  say.  Now,  this  building  up  of  these  persons 
makes  them  worth  a  hundred  times  as  much  to  society 
and  to  the  church  as  they  would  be,  had  they  merely 
been  recipients,  going  with  open  mouth,  always  eating, 
and  never  using  the  strength  which  came  from  digested 
food.  These  missions  at  home  keep  alive  the  disinter- 
estedness of  men  to  such  a  degree  that  I  have  come 
near  to  think  that  the  church  which  has  no  mission 

9  M 


L94 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHmG. 


feeling  in  it,  no  impetus  to  go  outside  of  itself,  no 
thought  of  anything  except  how  to  take  care  of  itself, 
is  scarcely  a  Christian  church.  I  clo  not  think  that 
vital  piety  is  long  to  be  sustained  in  any  body  of  men 
gathered  together  for  church  services,  where  there  is  no 
mission  spirit,  —  that  is,  a  spirit  of  disinterested  labor 
for  those  who  cannot  repay  you. 

CHURCH  SELFISHNESS. 

Our  mission  schools  have  also  accomplished  another 
thing  for  which  I  am  very  grateful.  I  am  ashamed  to 
see  great  churches,  whose  wealth  is  counted  by  millions, 
build  themselves  stately  houses,  give  to  them  everything 
that  can  make  them  comfortable  in  the  pew,  attractive 
in  the  choir,  eloquent  and  desirable  in  the  pulpit,  and 
when  they  have  done,  pay  their  minister  and  all  the 
expenses  liberally,  and  then  sit  themselves  down  and 
fold  around  themselves  the  robe  of  complacency,  saying, 
"  There,  if  the  Lord  don't  think  we  have  done  well,  he 
is  unreasonable."  What  have  they  done  but  for  them- 
selves ?  They  have  embellished  the  chariot  which 
is  carrying  them  to  heaven,  as  they  think,  —  though 
sometimes  that  is  a  mistake.  They  have  simply  made 
provision  for  their  own  religious  enjoyment. 

Churches  gather  together  families,  and  take  care  of 
them.  They  are  institutions  for  families.  They  forget 
all  outside  of  their  own  walls ;  they  forget  the  com- 
munity in  which  they  are,  which  is  under  their  care. 
If  some  few  of  their  members  are  stirred  up  to  open  a 
mission  school  in  a  destitute  neighborhood,  what  usually 
happens  ?  With  very  little  interest  on  the  part  of  the 
majority  of  the  church,  a  few  disinterested  persons  go 


BIBLE-CLASSES  —  MISSION  SCHOOLS  —  LAY  WORK.  195 

down  among  the  poor,  and  hire  a  hall.  They  have  to 
pay  almost  all  of  the  rent  out  of  their  own  pockets. 
They  have  a  dilapidated  hall,  neither  carpeted  nor 
decorated,  gaunt  and  drear ;  and  they  gather  together 
there  a  few  on  Sundays,  teaching  them  the  best  way 
they  can.  And  this  is  the  offering  of  that  church  to  the 
poor !  That  starveling  band  of  teachers,  in  a  little 
miserable,  wretched,  out-of-the-way  place,  —  that  is 
what  they  give  !  They  themselves  sumptuously  fed, 
living  in  a  gospel  palace,  having  nothing  neglected 
which  their  hearts  or  tastes  could  wish ;  yet,  when  they 
come  to  the  poor,  they  take  the  scraps  and  moldy  rinds 
to  give  to  them. 

Now,  I  hold  that  every  church  which  wants  to  do 
good  should  give,  not  what  it  has  left  over,  or  what 
it  stingily  thinks  it  can  spare,  to  the  poor.  That  which 
you  give  to  the  poor  ought  to  represent  that  which 
God  has  done  for  you  ;  it  ought  to  represent  the  fresh- 
ness, beauty,  art,  and  sweetness  which  prevail  in  the 
household  of  the  givers. 

When,  therefore,  we  wanted  to  build  our  Bethel, 
when  application  was  made  to  us,  as  a  church,  to 
take  the  school  off  the  hands  of  those  who  had  been 
carrying  it,  I  gathered  the  people  together,  and  said  to 
them,  It  is  to  be  determined  to-night  by  vote  whether 
you  shall  take  this  school  and  care  for  it ;  but  if  you  do, 
I  want  you  to  understand  what  you  must  do.  I  will 
iiot  consent  to  the  taking  of  this  school  as  a  poor,  lame 
poverty  school.  You  must  build  for  them  better  quar- 
ters than  you  have  for  yourselves,  and  must  treat  that 
school  so  that  they  shall  have,  in  the  very  offerings  you 
bring  to  them,  some  sense  of  the  richness  which  Chris- 


196 


LECTURES  ON  PKEACHING. 


tianity  has  brought  to  you."  They  assented  to  it. 
Now,  our  own  church  is  not  to  be  compared  for  beauty 
and  embellishment  with  the  Bethel.  That  building, 
with  the  ground,  cost  us  some  eighty  thousand  dollars. 
The  free  reading-room  is  filled  w^ith  pleasant  pictures. 
In  the  appropriate  rooms,  we  have  all  the  elements  of 
housekeeping  that  are  necessary.  The  teachers  once  a 
month  have  their  tea  there  together.  Every  quarter 
the  schools  have  a  festival  there.  It  is  a  complete  little 
household,  in  all  its  appointments.  Every  part  of  it  is 
fine  in  taste,  ample  and  excellent  in  the  quality  and 
quantity  of  the  things  provided.  We  spare  nothing  for 
them.  We  have  given  them  as  good  an  organ  as  Mr. 
Hook  can  build.  We  spend  five  thousand  dollars  a 
year  for  the  expense  of  running  that  school.  It  is  en- 
tirely a  free-will  offering.  Whatever  they  contribute 
goes  to  mission  work.  In  so  far  as  the  school  is  con- 
cerned, we  have  made  it  no  second-class  car,  while  we 
are  riding  to  heaven  in  the  first-class.  We  have  given 
them  the  first,  and  take  our  chances  in  the  second. 

Now,  where  you  organize  disinterestedly  in  this  way, 
and  give  the  gospel,  not  in  its  lean,  meager  development, 
in  its  poverty  and  wretchedness  ;  where  you  give  tlie 
gospel  in  its  inflorescence,  in  that  state  in  which  it  has 
had  time  to  root  and  grow  and  blossom ;  where  you 
embody  the  gospel  in  all  its  brightness  and  beauty,  as 
the  source  of  all  that  is  joyous  in  your  own  house,  —  take 
that  down  to  them  ;  send  with  it  your  best  children, 
your  ripest  and  sweetest,  your  most  disinterested.  Let 
these  make  themselves  at  home  with  the  poor,  and  be 
to  them,  week  by  week,  their  counsellors  and  advisers. 

Come  in  with  me,  on  Friday  afternoon,  which  is  the 


BIBLE-CLASSES  —  MISSION  SCHOOLS  —  LAY  WORK.  197 

afternoon  for  prayer  among  the  women,  and  for  the  tell- 
ing of  their  wants.  It  is  enough  to  melt  a  heart  of 
stone.  That  little  saintly  woman  who  presides  there, 
whose  name  I  will  not  mention,  is  to  them,  as  it  were, 
what  the  Virgin  Mary  is  to  the  more  devout  and  intelli- 
gent Catholics.  Her  ears  are  open  to  all  their  troubles. 
If  one  has  a  sick  child  or  a  sick  husband,  if  one  has 
had  a  death  in  a  family,  if  a  husband  has  been  abusive, 
if  there  is  discouragement,  if  the  boys  have  turned  out 
badly,  —  whatever  their  troubles,  it  is  their  privilege  to 
come  there,  Friday  afternoon,  and  make  known  all  their 
wants.  This  woman  sympathizes  with  them,  counsels 
them,  looks  after  them,  comforts  them.  And  this  work 
is  going  on  all  the  time,  from  year's  end  to  year's  end. 
There  is  no  vacation  in  that  school.  Our  Home  School 
has  a  vacation,  because  our  scholars  are  all  children  of 
prosperous  parents  ;  but  poverty  knows  no  vacation. 
The  grief  and  sorrow  that  come  in  the  lower  walks  of 
life  know  no  intermission.  We  always  keep  open  this 
house  of  refuge,  to  which  all  the  poor  and  the  needy  come. 
I  tell  you,  it  keeps  the  hearts  of  my  people  very  soft 
and  sweet.  There  is  a  revival  feeling  in  the  church  all 
the  time,  coming  very  largely  from  the  effects  of  our 
mission  work. 

I  have  said  that  the  best  thing  in  our  church  was  the 
Bible-class.  Well,  the  best  thing  in  our  church  is  the 
Mission  class  !  Whichever  one  you  think  of  last  is  the 
best. 

LAY  PREACHING. 

This  leads  me  to  speak  of  the  lay  element  in  churches. 
I  have  already  somewhat  anticipated  that  subject.  I 


198 


LECTUKES  ON  PRiEACHlNG. 


am  satisfied,  gentlemen,  that  you  are  never  going  to 
have  professional  ministers  enough  to  convert  the  world, 
—  never.  You  have  got  to  have  the  whole  church 
preach,  or  you  will  never  cover  the  ground.  The  popu- 
lation increases  a  great  deal  faster  than  ministers  do, 
especially  in  the  outlying  territories.  Just  think  of  the 
idea  of  attempting  to  closely  follow  up  that  rush  of  emi- 
gration, and  the  opening  of  those  vast  intermediary  and 
far-away  States  and  Territories,  with  schools  and 
churches  and  professional  ministers.  You  never  can 
do  it.  In  this  intelligent  age  of  the  world,  I  do  not 
understand  why  a  layman  has  not  just  as  much  right 
to  be  a  public  teacher  as  a  minister  has.  He  knows 
as  much  ;  he  averages  as  well.  He  does  not  undertake 
to  conduct  an  organization  in  all  its  details,  and  to  be  a 
leader  ;  but,  in  his  sphere,  he  is  prepared  to  preach  the 
gospel.  There  are  many  men  in  the  law,  in  medicine, 
in  mercantile  business,  many  teachers  in  schools,  many 
men  retired  from  active  business  life,  who  are  compe- 
tent to  take  this,  that,  or  the  other  neighborhood,  and 
maintain  service  from  Sabbath  to  Sabbath.  Able  lec- 
turers they  are  upon  education  ;  able  lecturers  they 
may  be  upon  temperance  ;  and  they  may  just  as  well 
preach  also  sermons  that  have  in  them  the  root  of  the 
gospel.  There  was  a  time  when  it  was  feared  that  they 
might  err  from  ignorance.  But  we  have  learned  to  trust 
men.  At  least,  the  democratic  idea  has  been  introduced 
into  the  church  ;  and  we  have  learned  to  have  great 
trust  and  confidence  in  men.  It  is  said  that  laymen  by 
their  rash  speaking  endanger  the  truth.  As  though 
there  never  was  any  rash  speaking  among  ministers, 
and  never  any  endangering  of  the  truth  among  them  I 


BIBLE-CLASSES  —  MISSION  SCHOOLS — LAY  WORK.  199 

It  is  said  that  they  will  run  wide  of  common-sense.  As 
if  all  ministers  were  always  in  the  line  of  common- 
sense  !  "  Oh  but/'  it  is  said,  "  ministers  are  rectified ; 
the  class  spirit  brings  them  up,  and  they  are  watched 
over."  Just  as  though  public  sentiment  would  not 
bring  the  others  up,  and  as  though  they  could  not  be 
rectified  !  The  Very  work  that  a  man  is  engaged  in  has 
the  element  of  rectification  in  it.  Let  men  not  be  per- 
secuted, let  them  not  be  questioned,  let  them  not  be 
nettled  and  irritated ;  for  getting  mad,  if  not  the  father, 
is  the  grandfather,  of  all  the  heresy  in  the  world  !  Men 
think  differently  from  you,  and  then  you  hit  them,  and 
then  they  say,  "  Now  I  will  stand  to  it."  And  they 
fight  for  their  opinion  ;  so  that  the  anger  that  is  excited 
by  opposition  is  the  cause  of  the  permanency  of  many 
and  many  an  aberration  that  has  taken  place  in  the 
church.  If  you  had  let  men  alone,  if  you  had  left  them 
at  liberty,  they  would  have  exhaled  much  that  was  ob- 
noxious; it  would  have  cured  itself.  Men  need  the 
work ;  the  field  needs  them.  They  are  not  only  to  be 
trusted,  but  I  think  that,  being  trusted,  they  will 
average  as  well  as  the  great  multitude  of  ministers  in 
the  kind  of  work  to  which  they  turn  their  hand. 

WORK  IN  one's  own  FIELD. 

That  is  not  all.  I  think  we  must  have  more  work 
from  laymen  in  their  own  business  and  in  their  own 
professions.  A  banking-house  is  the  banker's  parish ; 
the  landlord  has  his  parish  in  his  hotel ;  the  judge  has 
his  parish  in  the  bar,  and  among  the  people  that  are 
before  the  bar  and  behind  it.  Wherever  men  are,  there 
is  their  sphere  of  work.    I  knew  a  man  who  was  eu- 


200 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


gaged  in  business  in  Wall  Street.  Certain  transactions 
on  the  part  of  certain  young  men  of  character  and 
family  came  before  him.  He  drew  them  aside  and 
talked  to  them.  He  talked  to  them  as  a  Christian 
man  and  as  a  father  should.  The  effect  on  them  was 
overwhelming.  It  was  the  cause,  apparently,  of  an 
entirely  different  style  of  manhood  in  them  from  that 
upon  which  they  had  been  entering.  If  I  had  said 
those  things  to  them,  they  would  have  said, Oh,  of 
course ;  he  says  so  because  that  is  his  business ;  we  ex- 
pect that  from  a  minister ;  but  he  don't  understand 
much  about  business."  But  here  was  an  old  business 
man,  universally  looked  up  to  in  the  street ;  and  when 
he  talked  godliness  to  those  young  men,  it  meant  some- 
thing. If  I  were  to  see  a  young  buck  spend  his  nights 
in  dissipation,  drinking,  and  all  manner  of  license,  and 
should  go  and  talk  to  him,  he  would  say,  I  thank  you  ; 
you  mean  well,  no  doubt,  Mr.  Beecher."  And  he 
would  say,  after  I  had  gone  away,  "  The  minister  has 
been  to  talk  to  me,  and  he  was  a  good  old  fellow  "  ; 
and  he  might  be  very  grateful.  But  suppose  a  man  of 
the  world  who  had  gone  through  much,  a  man  of  so- 
ciety, not  altogether  clear  himself,  —  suppose  he  should 
take  that  young  man,  and  say,  "  Now,  Thomas,  let  me 
just  tell  you  something;  it  wont  do,  it  won't  do!" 
Let  him  talk,  and  it  will  make  a  hundred  times  greater 
impression,  especially  if  he  is  known  to  have  had  some 
experience  in  these  evil  courses,  but  has  come  out  of 
them  and  cleansed  himself,  and  stands  high  in  truth 
and  honor.  When  I  went  yesterday  from  the  lecture, 
a  man  met  me  and  asked  me,  "  You  know  Mr.  So-and- 
so  ? "    "  Yes,"  —  he  was  the  landlord  of  a  hotel.  Said 


BIBLE-CLASSES  —  MISSION  SCHOOLS  —  LAY  WORK.  201 

this  person,  "  That  man  led  me  to  Christ."  How  was 
that  ? "  "  Well,  said  he,  he  took  me  and  talked  to 
me."  I  inquired  of  the  landlord  afterwards,  and  he 
said  it  was  so.  He  saw  that  the  other  was  living  very 
wickedly,  and  he  talked  to  him,  and  told  him  he  was 
going  to  the  bad.  The  man  looked  up  in  his  face  in 
utter  amazement,  and  said,  "  You,  a  landlord,  talk  to 
me  so  ?  "  Yes,"  said  the  landlord,  "  I  do  talk  to  you 
so."  It  made  an  impression  upon  his  mind  that  no 
minister  ever  could  have  made. 

Now,  I  hold  that  there  are  some  things  which  can  be 
said  by  each  man  in  his  own  field,  and  by  nobody 
else  than  the  man  in  that  place,  and  that  our  lay 
force  ought  to  be  developed  in  the  church  and  out  of 
the  church,  so  as  to  supplement  and  carry  out  the 
preaching  of  the  pulpit.  That  pastorate  which  does 
not  make  the  most  of  all  the  laymen  and  laywomen  in 
the  church  and  in  the  congregation  is  imperfect  by  just 
so  much.  Many  of  you,  perhaps  most  of  you,  will 
disagree  with  me  in  the  matter  of  woman's  preaching, 
but  you  have  got  to  come  to  it ;  and  I  only  throw  it  out 
incidentally  now,  not  to  argue  it,  but  merely  to  say  that 
coming  events  cast  their  shadows  before  ;  and  when  the 
time  comes,  and  you  see  that  it  is  the  proper  thing  to 
do,  you  will  remember  I  told  you  you  would  have  to 
come  to  it. 

YOUNG  men's  christian  ASSOCIATIONS. 

One  word  as  to  Young  Men's  Christian  Associations. 
I  think,  in  large  cities,  there  is  a  sphere  for  them.  In 
country  places,  I  don't  see  what  they  are  but  men's 
churches.    I  tliink  that  the  young  men  and  young 
9* 


202 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


women  of  the  church  should  form  young  people's  asso- 
ciations in  the  church.  To  form  them  with  separate 
organizations,  with  elaborate  buildings  and  large  ma- 
chinery, may  be  wise  in  large  cities,  but  in  country 
towns  no  reason  for  it  exists.  As  a  universal  system, 
tlierefore,  extending  all  over  the  land,  I  doubt  if  tliere 
is  a  necessity  for  it ;  I  doubt  the  w^isdom  and  expedi- 
ency of  it.  But,  as  a  special  organization  in  our  large 
cities,  I  think  it  is  eminently  wise.  But  wdiat  ought 
these  associations  to  do  ?  What  is  their  business  ?  If 
it  be  preaching  to  the  young  men,  if  it  be  conducting 
prayer-meetings,  —  why,  the  church  does  tliat,  and  it 
had  better  be  done  in  the  churches.  If  it  be  merely 
getting  together  classes  and  giving  them,  free  instruc- 
tion in  Italian,  Spanish,  French,  mathematics,  mechan- 
ics, —  why,  we  have  multitudes  of  institutions  that 
are  doing  that.  Why  need  there  be  a  Young  Men's 
Christian  Association  to  duplicate  that  work  ?  If,  how- 
ever, there  is  a  work  set  on  foot  for  mutual  guardian- 
ship and  protection,  and  mutual  combined  effort  to 
procure  occupation  for  those  who  are  out  of  it,  —  an 
association  for  taking  care  of  the  sick,  or  for  watching 
tlie  children  that  come  from  the  country  into  the  city ; 
if,  more  than  that,  the  Young  Men's  Christian  Associa- 
tions provide  in  the  cities  lawful  amusements  in  suit- 
able places,  so  that,  if  a  man  goes  to  unlawful,  injurious 
amusements,  he  does  it  because  he  wants  to  go  there, 
and  not  because  he  needs  to  go  there  ;  if  they  give  to 
young  men  modes  of  honorable  and  manly  athletic  ex- 
ercise ;  if  they  visit  the  jails ;  if  they  look  after  the 
various  asylums  ;  if  they  become  auxiliaries  of  the  offi- 
cers of  the  law  •  if  they  trace  out  lotteries  and  obscene 


BIBLE-CLASSES  —  MISSION  SCHOOLS  —  LAY  WORK.  203 

and  abominable  publications,  —  if  they  attempt  to  do 
these  neglected  things,  which  church  organizations  are 
not  well  fitted  to  do,  there  may  be  a  large  sphere  of 
usefulness  for  them.  Otherwise,  I  scarcely  know  why 
men  should  go  to  the  expense,  pains,  and  labor  of  forni- 
iug  an  organization  for  prayer-meetings,  or  any  other  of 
those  things  which  could  be  just  as  well  developed  in 
their  church  connections. 

QUESTIONS  AND  ANSWERS. 

Q.  Do  you  think  the  positive  reUgioiis  cast  of  the  Young  Men's 
Christian  Associations  hinders  them  t 

Mr.  Beecher.  —  I  do  not  know  that  it  hinders  them, 
because  the  strictly  religious  element  is  entirely  a  mat- 
ter of  option,  and  the  other  things  in  the  organization 
can  be  taken  without  the  prayer-meeting.  They  do  not 
do  as  they  used  to  sometimes  on  shipboard,  when  sailors 
were  not  allowed  grog  unless  they  came  to  prayer- 
meetings.    The  different  features  are  disconnected. 

Q.  Would  you  have  as  teachers  for  your  Sabbath-school  persons 
who  are  not  members  of  the  church  1 

Mr.  Beecher.  —  Yes,  sir ;  I  would.  I  hold  that  no 
man  or  woman  who  goes  into  a  Sunday-school  to  teach, 
can  teach  long  without  becoming  a  Christian.  I  would 
do  it  as  a  means  of  grace  to  the  teacher.  So  far  as  the 
scholar  is  concerned,  the  teaching  will,  for  the  most 
part,  be  correct  in  idea  and  general  feeling,  because  in 
our  Christian  society  and  our  age  of  the  world,  young 
men  and  young  women  are  educated  in  such  a  way 
as  to  carry  with  them  a  vast  amount  of  Christian  feel- 
ing and  Christian  ethics.  I  do  not  believe  that  a  man 
before  he  is  converted  is  a  heathen.    I  think  there 


204 


LECTURES  ON  PKEACHING. 


is  a  law  in  the  household,  in  the  principles  and  customs 
of  society,  a  reflex  light  of  Christianity,  shining  in  upon 
us  from  every  side  of  human  society  ;  and  there  is  not 
a  young  man  or  young  woman  among  us  who  does  not 
possess  a  vast  amount  of  the  real  Christian  element. 
The  fountain  needs  to  be  opened  through  which  the 
supply  shall  come  perennially  from  God.  Nevertheless, 
a  person  not  fully  a  Christian  may  have  been  trained 
so  that  he  is  competent  to  convey  Christian  influence 
and  ideas  to  a  class.  The  attempt  to  move  another 
mind  toward  God  is  one  of  the  most  solemn  things  that 
any  man  ever  undertakes  in  this  world,  one  of  the  fruit- 
ful things,  and  the  most  quickly  blest.  I  was  never  in 
my  life  brought  so  near  to  God  by  prayer,  or  by  read- 
ing, or  by  anything  else,  as  I  have  been  by  the  disclos- 
ure of  the  wants  of  a  soul  that  came  to  me  for  succor 
and  relief.  It  has  exalted  me  immeasurably  higher 
than  any  other  instrumentality  in  the  world.  I  do  not 
believe  that  a  young  man  or  a  young  woman,  con- 
scientious and  susceptible,  can  sit  before  a  class  of  eager, 
palpitating  children  for  many  weeks,  and  not  feel  the 
arrow  in  his  soul. 

Q.  Do  you  beheve  in  graded  teaching  in  Sabbath-schools,  such 
as  we  have  in  day  schools  ? 

Mr.  Beecher.  —  Yes,  sir ;  whenever  you  are  in  cir- 
cumstances where  you  can  apply  that  principle. 

Q.  Would  you  have  teachers  in  Sabbath-schools  who  believed 
in  Universalism  ? 

Mr.  Beecher.  —  Not  to  teach  it.  That  is,  I  should 
say  a  man  is  not  honest  who  would  go  into  an  Orthodox 
church  and  teach  Universalism  in  the  Sabbath-school, 


BIBLE-CLASSES  —  MISSION  SCHOOLS  —  LAY  WORK.  205 


wliei)  he  knew  that  that  was  not  the  faith  of  the  church, 
and  not  the  faith  of  the  school.  If  I  believed  in  Uni- 
versalism  ever  so  much,  and  went  into  an  Orthodox 
school,  I  would  teach  everything  but  that ;  I  would 
not  teach  that.  If  I  were  invited  to  preach  for  a 
Methodist,  do  you  suppose  I  would  go  into  his  pulpit 
and  preach  Calvinism,  even  if  I  preached  it  at  home  ? 
There  is  a  principle  of  equity  and  courtesy  always  to 
be  observed. 

Q.  Would  you  have  the  pastor  or  the  superintendent  conduct 

the  teachers'  meeting  ? 

Mr.  Beecher.  —  The  pastor,  if  he  can,  unless  there 
is  a  better  man,  which  is  not  unfrequently  the  case.  I 
hold  that  you  have  a  right  to  the  gifts  of  everybody  in 
your  church.  There  is  not  a  man  in  my  church  that  I 
have  not  a  right  to.  If  he  is  oak,  I  have  a  right  to  him 
when  I  want  oak  ;  and  if  he  is  pine,  I  have  a  right  to 
him  where  pine  is  the  best  thing. 

Q.  In  Bible-classes,  do  you  recommend  question-books,  or 
merely  taking  a  text  ? 

Mr.  Beecher.  —  Either  way,  whichever  happens  to  be 
the  best.  Sometimes,  a  question-book.  I  remember 
Cogswell's  Question-Book  on  Divinity,  and  that  I  en- 
joyed the  use  of  it  before  I  went  into  the  ministry ; 
and  I  have  known  great  good  to  be  done  by  it ;  some- 
times by  doing  as  old  Dr.  Humphrey  did  with  Parry, 
—  tearing  it  to  pieces  ;  and  sometimes  by  following  it 
and  teaching  according  to  it. 

Q.  Would  it  not  be  better  to  leave  the  question-book  and  take 
the  text  ? 

Mr.  Beecher.  —  What  should  prevent  your  doing 


206 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


sometimes  the  one  thing  and  sometimes  the  other  ? 
Eoutine  is  to  be  avoided.  Infinite  variety,  continual 
change,  that  is  the  course  of  nature,  and  that  is  the 
course  of  human  nature  in  society.  Generally  it  is  not 
the  course  in  churches,  and  that  is  the  bane  of  churches. 
We  run  too  much  into  regular  routine.  In  most 
churches,  I  would  not  have  a  Bible-class  all  the  year 
round.  I  would  continue  it  as  long  as  it  ran  fresh  and 
deep  ;  but  if  I  saw  it  begin  to  fail,  I  would  say, Breth- 
ren, we  will  adjourn  this  class  for  four  months.  We 
will  go  over  the  harvest  season,  —  or  over  so  long  a 
time.  We  don't  want  to  run  this  thing  into  the  ground. 
We  don't  want  to  gorge  ourselves."  I  would  not  have 
a  person  come  to  prayer-meeting  or  Bible-class  because 
he  thought  he  must.  I  would  try  to  take  off  the  sense 
of  bondage  and  make  things  free  and  pleasant,  make 
men  come  to  church  because  it  is  sweet  to  come  to 
church.  In  order  to  keep  things  fresh  and  lively,  a 
hundred  expedients  must  be  taken.  Never  let  a  prayer- 
meeting  die,  and  then  lay  it  out  in  tears.    Kill  it. 

Q.  Would  n't  that  be  murder  ? 

Mr.  Beecher.  —  Well,  sir,  I  have  an  opinion  that  dis- 
criminating and  judicious  murders  are  beneficial. 

Q.  Would  you  have  those  lay  preachers  formally  examined  and 
set  apart  ? 

Mr.  Beecher.  —  I  would  examine  them  in  this  way  : 
I  would  see,  after  they  had  gone  to  work,  what  they  did. 
And  if  they  did  good  work,  I  should  say.  Go  on.  If 
they  did  not,  I  would  examine  to  see  whether  they 
probably  could  do  good  work ;  and  if  I  found  they  could 
by  a  little  instruction  and  help,  I  would  give  it  to  them. 


BIBLE-CLASSES  —  MISSION  SCHOOLS  —  LAY  WORK.  20? 


I  would  induce  the  sense  of  voluntariness  and  freedom 
just  as  far  as  I  possibly  could,  restraining  it  only  at 
the  point  where  I  thought  it  needed  restraint. 

Q.  Do  you  have  foreigners  in  your  school  1 

Mr.  Beecher.  —  Yes,  sir ;  a  great  many  of  them.  We 
reach  the  boys  largely.  We  have  two  reading-rooms 
that  are  free,  one  for  boys  and  one  for  men.  One  free 
reading-room  for  men  —  which  is  lighted  and  warmed, 
and  made  as  cheerful  as  possible,  and  which  accommo- 
dates an  average  of  eighty  or  a  hundred  every  night  — 
was  first  established.  Then  the  boys  wanted  to  come, 
and  we  had  no  accommodations  for  them;  so  we 
had  the  whole  basement  cleaned  out,  floored,  lighted, 
ventilated,  and  decorated,  and  then  we  provided  for  the 
boys  books,  papers,  and  magazines,  illustrated  publica- 
tions particularly.  The  boys  that  came  in  there  were  so 
low  that  we  actually  put  them  in  first  through  the  batli- 
room.  We  made  them  wash  their  faces  and  comb  their 
hair.  Some  of  them  were  so  low  that  when  they  saw 
each  other  with  hair  combed  and  faces  washed,  they 
laughed  as  though  it  were  the  best  joke  of  the  season. 
AVe  had  to  have  policemen  to  keep  the  building  in 
order,  so  wild  were  they.  And  yet  after  tliey  once 
understood  that  there  was  law  and  power,  we  took  the 
policemen  all  away  as  soon  as  possible,  and  threw 
the  responsibility  of  good  order  upon  the  boys  them- 
selves. They  responded  to  it,  and,  through  all  the  later 
period,  we  have  had  just  as  good  order  among  the  boys 
as  among  the  men.  Now  these  were,  to  a  boy,  foreign- 
ers ;  there  was  not  an  American  boy  in  the  whole  lot. 
And  that  is  not  all ;  there  was  hardly  a  Protestant  boy 
in  the  whole  lot. 


208  LECTURES  ON  PREACHIKG. 

Q.  Did  you  give  them  amusements  ? 

Mr.  Beecher.  —  We  did.  We  gave  them  checker- 
boards, and  taught  them  how  to  play  with  them.  We 
couldn't  very  well  teach  ball,  or  billiards,  or  tenpins, 
down  in  that  little  building,  but  we  taught  them  check- 
ers, which  they  could  play. 

Q.  How  would  you  treat  Sunday-school  scholars  that  are 
persistently  disorderly  ? 

Mr.  Beecher.  —  Well,  that  is  a  pretty  tough  ques- 
tion. In  a  Sunday-school  class  that  is  persistently  dis- 
orderly, it  might  come  to  such  a  pass  that  you  would 
be  obliged  to  exclude  single  boys  among  them  ;  but  I 
think  that  patient  continuance  in  loving  sympathy  and 
kindness  would  subdue  almost  any  class.  At  least, 
if  it  did  n't  do  any  good  to  the  boys,  it  would  to  the 
teacher. 

Q.  You  spoke  of  the  conversion  of  a  great  many  of  the  young 
men.  What  was  the  habit  of  the  teachers  in  respect  to  the 
visitation  of  those  at  their  homes,  besides  their  instruction  in 
school  1 

Mr.  Beecher.  —  I  cannot  say  as  to  that.  I  only 
know  that,  wherever  there  was  sickness  and  trouble, 
the  teacher  or  teachers  knew  of  it,  and  visited  there. 
In  other  words,  there  was  a  perfect  system  of  pastoral 
care  in  our  Bethel  Mission  School.  The  parish  is  so 
large  that  I  am  bishop  now,  you  know,  and  my  curates, 
or  under-ministers,  perform  the  functions  of  the 
ministry.  So,  if  I  cannot  be  had,  the  superintendent 
of  the  Home  School  is  competent  to  go  to  the  funeral 
of  any  of  the  people  in  that  school,  and  minister  to 
edification.  The  superintendent  of  the  Bethel  Mission, 
too,  is  competent,  and  there  are  others  who  are  active 


BIBLE -€Lx\SSES  — MISSION  SCHOOLS — LAY  WORK.  209 


and  able.  The  people  receive  it,  because  these  are  the 
persons  who  are  teaching  them,  who  are  all  the  time 
doino*  them  good.  And  when  there  is  sickness  or  death 
in  the  house,  these  are  the  very  persons  whom  they  like 
to  see.  I  have  twenty  men  who,  I  believe,  if  you  were 
to  send  them  anywhere  on  the"  two  continents,  would 
not  stay  a  month  without  establishing  what  was  equiv- 
alent to  a  church  center,  and  they  would  administer 
ordinances  and  go  forw^ard  with  the  whole  work  of  the 
gospel  ;  because  I  teach  everybody  that  preaching^ 
ordinances,  everything,  is  subordinate  to  manhood,  and 
that  he  who  is  a  man  in  Christ  Jesus  owns  all  things. 
Sunday  does  not  own  him,  the  church  does  not  own 
him  ;  he  owns  Sunday,  he  owns  the  church,  he  owns 
the  Bible,  he  owns  the  ordinances ;  and  any  man  who 
has  faith  in  Christ  and  love  to  God,  and  who  sees  there 
is  an  opportunity  of  doing  good  by  it,  has  a  right  to 
distribute  emblems,  bread  and  wine,  to  anybody  who 
needs  them.  It  is  the  Christ  in  him  that  gives  him 
authority  over  everything  else.  There  is  a  great  deal 
of  power  obtained  by  bringing  up  a  set  of  men  who 
believe  this,  and  practice  it  too. 


VIII. 


THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  EEVIVALS. 

TWO  EXTREMES  OF  OPINION. 

PUEPOSE  this  afternoon  to  begin  the  con- 
sideration of  the  general  subject  of  revivals. 
There  are,  besides  the  intermediate  view,  two 
extreme  opinions  which  are  entertained  on 
this  important  topic.  On  the  one  side,  there  are  those 
who  regard  the  existence  of  revivals  as  perhaps,  in  our 
day,  the  most  eminent  instance  of  immediate  Divine 
presence  that  is  vouchsafed  to  the  world.  They  are 
regarded  with  a  reverence  that  borders  even  upon 
superstition.  Often  one  would  think,  by  what  men 
utter,  that  not  only  were  revivals  out  of  the 
course  of  nature,  but  that  ordinary  laws  were  so  sus- 
pended in  them  that  our  experience  in  other  relations 
threw  but  very  little  light  upon  the  questions  connected 
with  them.  At  the  opposite  extreme  are  those  who 
regard  revivals  of  religion  as  the  most  remarkable  ex- 
hibitions of  morbid  emotion  which  can  now  be  found ; 
believing  that,  if  they  do  not  spring  from  Satanic  influ- 
ence, they  yet  represent  the  wildest  and  most  spasmodic 
forms  of  unregulated  human  feeling  and  fantasy. 


THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  REVIVALS. 


211 


THE  HISTORIC  VIEW. 

I  purpose  to-day  to  enter  upon  some  general  consid- 
erations, showing  on  what  grounds  I  believe  in  re- 
vivals of  religion,  and  answering  many  of  the  objections 
which  exist  in  the  minds  of  those  who  do  not  believe 
in  them  or  labor  for  them.  Looking  back  over  history, 
we  find  that  all  nations  have  been  subject  to  great 
swells  of  impassioned  feeling ;  that  these  impetuous 
outbreaks  have  not  been  casual  and  meaningless,  but 
have  been  intimately  connected  with  some  of  the  most 
important  steps  that  the  world  has  made ;  that  they 
stand  in  close  relations  to  civil  policy ;  that  they  are 
intimately  connected  with  commercial  impulse  and 
prosperity ;  that  they  have  their  place  in  the  realm  of 
art ;  that  they  belong  to  literature ;  that  they  spread, 
in  short,  over  so  much  of  human  history  as  to  take  in, 
from  first  to  last,  every  part  of  the  human  mind  and  its 
experiences. 

THE  REVIVAL  ELEMENT  IN  JUDAISM. 

As  we  all  think  that  the  Hebrew  history  has  in 
it  something  more  sacred  than  any  other ;  as  Matthew 
Arnold  holds  that  the  Hebrews  were  employed  by 
Divine  Providence  to  develop  more  perfectly  than  any 
other  nation  the  great,  deep,  moral  sentiments,  —  it  is 
very  interesting  to  look  back  and  see  how  largely  the 
substantial  element  of  religious  revivals  entered  into 
their  economy.  I  do  not  need  to  dwell  on  prodigious 
outbursts  like  that  which  took  place  when  Elijah  gath- 
ered together  all  the  prophets  of  Baal,  and  introduced 
new  measures  with  a  vengeance,  and  slew  them  all. 


212 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


That,  of  course,  was  not  a  revival  of  pure  and  uncle- 
filed  religion,  in  any  such  sense  as  we  understand  by 
the  phrase  in  modern  times ;  but  certainly  it  was  a 
wild  effort  of  the  people  to  throw  off  the  domination 
of  idolatry.  They  were  inspired  to  a  more  generous 
thought  of  God  and  of  their  own  religion,  and  to  a 
momentary  detestation  of  the  oppressive  idolatry  that 
was  fixed  upon  them  by  the  royal  family. 

I  need  not  point  to  those  great  popular  uprisings  that 
took  place  in  the  rebuilding  of  the  temple,  in  the  rescu- 
ing of  the  nation  from  foreign  bondage.  I  point  espe- 
cially to  this,  that  the  revival  economy,  in  its  essential 
element,  was  incorporated  into  the  Mosaic  system.  For 
I  hold  that  the  three  great  annual  visi!s  of  the  whole 
Jewish  male  population  to  Jerusalem  were  substan- 
tially nothing  more  than  "  protracted  meetings  "  held  by 
the  whole  population  of  Judaea.  The  entire  people  was 
assembled  at  the  three  great  feasts,  and  we  have  record 
of  the  transporting  effects  which  often  took  place  when 
they  all  mingled  together,  and  the  whole  national  heart 
throbbed  in  unison  to  the  same  thought  and  the  same 
feeling.  It  was  a  saying  among  the  old  Jewish  writers, 
that  he  who  had  never  been  present  at  one  of  the  days, 
—  a  certain  day  in  the  Feast  of  the  Tabernacles,  I 
think  it  was,  —  and  seen  the  rejoicing  on  that  day, 
could  not  know  what  joy  was.  For  the  Jews,  I  had 
almost  said,  deified  enjoyment.  In  the  Hebrew  litera- 
ture there  are  expressions  of  joy,  from  the  lowest  up  to 
the  very  highest  rapture,  such  as  I  find  nowhere  in 
modern  literature;  and  they  are  intimately  connected 
with  the  development  of  religious  life.  Now,  these 
great   festivals   of  the   Jews  were  really  organized 


THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  REVIVALS. 


213 


national  institutions  for  the  promotion  of  revivals. 
This  will  be  more  apparent  when  we  come  to  look  par- 
ticularly into  the  nature  and  operation  of  the  revival 
spirit. 

REVIVALS  IN  CHRIST'S  MINISTRY. 

At  a  later  period,  if  you  will  look  closely  into  the 
life  of  the  Saviour,  I  think  you  will  find  that  during 
pretty  nearly  all  of  his  Galilean  life,  —  which  was,  I 
suspect,  more  than  two  thirds  of  the  whole  of  his  min- 
isterial life,  —  the  people  around  him  were  in  what  can 
be  regarded  only  as  a  state  of  religious  revival.  That 
is 'to  say,  there  was  such  an  excitement  of  the  whole 
population  wherever  he  went,  that  all  other  things  fell 
into  the  background,  and  the  mass  of  the  people  gave 
way  to  one  feeling  and  one  impulse,  following  him. 
And  wherever  he  went,  it  was  so.  When  he  went  up 
to  Jerusalem,  it  was  scarcely  less  marked  than  in 
Galilee.  After  his  conflicts  in  the  Temple,  he  was 
driven  out  for  a  time  and  took  refuge  in  Perea,  or 
across  the  Jordan.  And,  although  we  have  almost  no 
topographical  details  of  his  residence  there,  it  would 
seem  that,  in  the  multitude  of  parables  that  there  fell 
out  from  him,  this  period  transcended  any  other  in  his 
whole  life.  It  was  there  and  then  that  some  of  the 
most  stupendous  of  his  miracles,  as  well  as  the  great- 
est number  of  them,  seem  to  have  taken  place.  The 
same  things,  it  would  seem,  took  place  at  the  other 
side  of  the  Jordan.  So  it  is  fair,  I  presume,  to  say 
that  the  whole  of  the  Saviour's  ministerial  life,  at  least 
the  part  of  it  that  stands  on  record,  was  passed  in 
what  we  may  call  substantially  a  revival  work. 


214 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


REVIVALS  IN  MODERN  TIME. 

Now  we  know  that,  in  subsequent  periods,  fhe 
church  was  subject  to  these  great  Divine  freshets,  if  I 
may  so  call  them.  The  rains  upon  the  mountains 
tilled  the  immediate  channels  fuller  than  they  could 
liold,  and  they  overflowed  their  banks  and  spread  fer- 
tility on  both  sides,  clear  down  to  the  time  of  the 
Reformation,  which  was  itself  a  grand  revival  of  re- 
ligion. And,  from  that  time  down  to  this,  revivals  have 
been  more  and  more  frequent.  In  our  day,  revivals 
of  religion  are  known,  I  had  almost  said,  in  every  de- 
nomination. There  is  that  leading  primitive  sect,  the 
Eoman  Catholic  Church  :  they  not  only  have  revivals, 
but  with  their  usual  good  sense,  having  seen  how  well 
tliey  work  in  Protestant  churches,  they  have  adopted 
the  principle,  and  now  they  have  what  are  called  Mis- 
sions, sending  out  revival  preachers  —  for  they  are 
nothing  but  that  —  and  holding  protracted  meetings 
two  and  three  days,  or  seven  days,  if  need  be,  and 
bringing  their  flocks,  especially  the  more  ignorant  por- 
tions of  them,  into  precisely  those  conditions  into 
which  we  strive  to  bring  men  in  revival  labors. 

In  the  Presbyterian  churches,  in  the  Congregational 
churches,  in  the  Methodist  churches,  in  the  Baptist 
churches,  in  all  the  churches  of  the  great  sects  in  the 
land,  excepting  perhaps  the  Episcopal  Church,  revivals 
of  religion  are  prevalent.  The  universality  of  this 
phenomenon  would  lead  one  to  ask,  "  Is  there  not  some- 
thing in  the  human  mind  itself  that  leads  to  such 
results  ?  Ought  we  not  to  look  for  a  philosophical 
undercurrent  in  this  matter  ? "  I  think  that  if  you  look 


THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  REVIVALS. 


215 


a  little  at  the  action  of  the  human  mind;  you  will  see 
that  there  is  the  explanation  of  it. 

THE  PSYCHOLOGICAL  EXPLANATION. 

There  are,  if  I  may  so  say,  three  states  or  conditions 
of  excitability  in  the  faculties  of  men.  There  is  the 
state  of  acquiescence,  or  the  latent  condition  of  a 
faculty:  that  is,  the  faculty  exists,  but  there  is  no  au- 
tomatic action,  no  habitual  response  from  it.  For  in- 
stance, there  are  many  persons  that  have  a  feeble  sus- 
ceptibility to  beauty  of  color ;  so  that  if  you  bring  a 
compound,  intense,  and  solar  red  to  bear  upon  them, 
you  can  strike  through  the  torpor  of  their  taste  and 
make  them  feel  that  there  is  something  beautiful  in 
color ;  but  this  capacity  is  low  in  them,  it  is  sluggish. 
There  are  a  great  many  persons  who  have  faculties  and 
affections  of  various  kinds,  which  are  in  just  that  frigid, 
inactive  state,  and  which  require  the  intensest  stimula- 
tion to  develop  them.  The  reason  why  uncultivated 
people  like  brilliant  colors  is  no  other  than  this :  the 
principle  of  taste  or  the  sense  of  beauty  in  them  is  so 
torpid  til  at  it  requires  intensity  to  bring  from  it  the 
same  response  which  is,  in  cultivated  people,  aroused 
by  a  very  much  milder  tone  of  color.  This  is  a  fair 
analogy  for  all  the  faculties  of  the  mind.  There  is  a 
second  state,  in  which  the  faculties  of  men  are  ordi- 
narily excitable  and  in  even  play.  Then  comes  the 
highest,  the  automatic  form,  in  which  the  mind  acts 
spontaneously  and  of  itself.  There  are  hundreds  of  men 
who  think,  when  you  pierce  them  with  incitement  to 
thought.  But  there  are  men  whose  cerebral  activity  is 
such  that,  whether  they  wish  it  or  not,  they  are  con- 


216 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


tiniially  creative.  The  creative  states,  the  automatic 
habits,  of  faculty  are  the  highest. 

Now,  experience  shows  that  it  is  not  possible  to  de- 
velop these  higher  forms  in  the  minds  of  ordinary  men, 
if  you  take  them  singly.  In  other  words,  you  can- 
not develop  the  higher  feelings  to  the  highest  degree, 
by  aiming  simply  at  those  faculties.  You  must  stir 
up  the  mind  in  its  totality.  The  passions,  the  appe- 
tites, all  the  force-giving  elements  in  the  mind, — 
the  whole  commonwealth  of  the  soul,  —  has  got  to  hear 
the  trumpet  blow,  and  everything  that  is  in  the  man, 
from  top  to  bottom,  and  from  side  to  side,  must  wake 
up,  and  everything  become  auxiliary  to  every  other 
thing  in  the  soul.  And  here  you  have  the  suggestion 
of  a  general  principle,  namely,  the  necessity  to  individ- 
ual faculties  of  help  from  collaterals  or  inferiors.  If 
you  take  this  principle  and  test  its  application  in  a  com- 
munity, you  will  find  that  precisely  the  same  law  holds 
good  outside  of  the  individual  mind,  in  respect  to  the 
great  elements  of  human  interest,  that  exists  within  the 
mind  as  a  psychological  fact.  You  Avill  find  that  the 
great  mass  of  the  community  are  in  such  conditions  that 
they  cannot  rise  unless  they  are  socially  helped,  —  they 
cannot  rise  alone.  There  are  very  few  persons  in  the 
community,  even  among  those  whom  we  call  intelligent 
men,  who  are  competent  to  do  for  themselves  any  satis- 
factory amount  of  thinking.  But  let  them  converse  ; 
let  them  walk  from  morning  to  evening  with  those 
who  are  interested  in  the  same  things  (especially  if 
there  be  as  many  as  three  or  four),  and  you  shall  find 
that  they  will  avail  themselves  of  this  social  influ- 
ence to  become  far  richer  and  more  active  thinkers 


THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  REVIVALS. 


217 


than  they  could  be  by  themselves.  The  same  principle 
works  in  the  elements  of  moral  emotion.  Society  of 
feeling  helps  feeling.  There  are  many  of  our  moral 
feelings  that  would  almost  never  act  but  for  auxiliaries. 
I  will  take  a  familiar  instance  in  the  case  of  conscience, 
a  faculty  which  all  have  or  are  supposed  to  have,  and 
which  yet,  after  all,  is  far  from  being  a  leading  faculty. 
If  there  are  one  or  two  men  in  a  thousand  who  have 
the  sense  of  conscience  pure  and  unmingled,  then  there 
are  more  men  of  genius  in  conscience  than  there  are  in 
poetry  or  in  art.  Nine  men  in  ten,  yes,  ninety-nine 
^len  in  one  hundred,  have  their  conscience  in  such  a 
state  that  it  never  acts  except  through  some  auxiliary 
feeling.  Here  is  one  man  who  never  has  any  conscience 
in  ordinary  things  ;  but  when  his  taste  is  offended,  in 
other  words,  when  the  sentiment  of  taste  as  an  auxiliary 
stirs  u-p  the  moral  sense,  then  he  is  keenly  sensitive  to 
right  and  wrong.  In  some  communities,  and  in  some 
churches,  you  will  find  that  the  moral  sense  is  nothing 
in  the  world  but  conscience  formed  through  taste  or 
imagination.  That  which  is  beautiful  is  very  likely  to 
be  holy  to  them,  and  that  which  is  repulsive  to  taste  is 
thought  to  be  wicked  ;  wickedness  covered  with  all 
beauty  is  not  so  very  wicked  after  all  to  such  men. 
Their  conscience  acts  through  this  auxiliary,  and  takes 
its  colors  and  hues  from  it.  Again,  there  are  some  men 
who  are  conscientious,  when  I  present  conscience  to 
them  in  the  light  of  benevolence  and  sympathy.  To  a 
man  of  benevolence,  everything  that  is  cruel  is  wicked ; 
and  anything  that  has  kindness  in  it  can  hardly  be 
wrong.  There  are  other  men  who  are  affected  by 
the  sense  of  shame  and  by  self-esteem.    For  instance^ 

VOL.  II.  10 


218' 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


many  a  man  will  steal  and  rob  and  commit  murder, 
and  never  have  a  pang  till  you  catch  him,  put  him 
in  prison,  and  bring  to  bear  upon  him  the  gaze  of  the 
whole  community.  Then,  under  the  sense  of  shame 
and  wounded  approbativeness,  the  man  begins  to  look 
back  upon  his  deeds,  and  to  feel  that  they  were  mon- 
strous. It  is  only  the  shame  that  comes  in  to  represent 
conscience  that  kindles  the  flame  in  him.  There  are  men 
who,  under  cover  of  law,  will  steal  and  lie,  —  in  a  cred- 
itable manner,  —  and  never  feel  any  compunction  for 
it,  never  feel  that  they  violate  any  canon  of  morality. 
You  must  put  the  faculty  of  self-esteem  in  these  men 
in  such  a  position  that  it  becomes  auxiliary  to  con- 
science, and  then  they  begin  to  have  a  s-ense  of  right 
and  wrong  in  the  matter  of  truth  and  of  fair  dealing. 
Their  conscience  interprets  through  these  auxiliaries. 

Now,  that  which  takes  place  within  the  man,  I  say, 
takes  place  without  him.  There  are  in  the  community 
vast  multitudes  of  men  who,  if  they  are  to  be  roused 
and  made  to  have  any  vivid  emotion,  must  be  reached 
by  rousing  up  those  about  them,  so  that  they  shall  have 
these  for  assistants.  If  you  should  put  one  man  before 
a  minister,  and  let  the  minister  preach  to  him  as  J ona- 
than  Edwards  would  have  preached,  he  could  not  raise 
that  man  to  any  high  level  of  feeling,  or  even  begin  to 
do  it,  as  he  could  if  there  were  added  to  him  five  hun- 
dred other  men  sitting  there  together,  all  receiving  the 
same  impulse,  and  all,  through  sympathy,  radiating  the 
same  impulse  to  each  other. 


THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  REVIVALS. 


219 


ACCEPTING  nature's  LAWS. 

When  you  come  to  look  upon  the  community  as  it  is, 
to  judge  of  things  as  they  are,  and  not  as  they  ought 
to  be,  you  will  reason  about  men  as  we  reason  in 
the  garden  about  plants.  I  don't  go  into  my  grounds 
and  say,  "  Look  here ;  these  hollyhocks  ought  not  to 
grow  taller  than  daisies ;  they  do,  to  be  sure,  but  then 
they  ought  not  to."  I  never  question  Nature  in  that 
way.  On  the  other  hand,  I  always  humbly  impor- 
tune Nature,  saying,  Tell  me  thy  will,  and  then,  by 
obeying,  I  will  command  thee."  I  take  everything 
according  to  its  nature,  —  the  tuberous  root,  the  fibrous 
root,  the  ligneous,  the  herbaceous,  the  high,  the  low, 
the  blossoming,  —  each  and  every  thing  according  to  its 
nature.  ,  Now,  in  going  out  into  the  community,  there 
is  nothing  that  will  be  more  likely  to  mislead  you  than 
that  despotic  "  ought."  A  man  stands  in  the  pulpit 
and  preaches  sermons  that  are  away  over  the  head  of 
everybody,  and  when  you  expostulate  with  him  he  will 
say,  "  Oh,  they  ouglii  to  come  up  to  such  thoughts  ;  they 
ouglfit  to  like  such  themes."  You  have  got  to  work 
among  men  as  they  are.  To  the  weak,  you  must  be 
weak ;  to  the  strong,  strong.  Among  the  Jews  you 
must  be  a  J ew,  and  among  the  Gentiles  you  must  be  as 
a  Gentile.  If  you  can  do  it  half  as  skillfully  as  Paul  did, 
—  and  he  could  not  do  it  so  skillfully  but  that  he  was 
caught  a  good  many  times,  —  you  will  have  more  suc- 
cess in  your  ministry  than  if  you  adopt  the  iron 
method,  and  undertake  to  bring  everybody  under  it. 
Now,  looking  upon  the  subject  in  this  light,  knowing 
these  inward  tendencies  in  men,  I  aver  that  the  contro- 


220 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


versy  between  fixed  institutions  and  occasional  impulses 
is  one  that  will  very  soon  be  settled. 

REGULAR  INSTITUTIONS  INADEQUATE. 

It  is  said  by  those  who  do  not  believe  in  revivals, 
"  It  is  far  better  that  you  should  preach  the  gospel 
regularly,  methodically  ;  follow  it  up  by  proper  visita- 
tion and  by  all  manner  of  appliances  ;  and  then  you 
can  control  the  influences  and  the  results.  A  com- 
munity that  is  educated  in  this  way  is  a  great  deal  bet- 
ter than  if  it  were  subject  to  these  starts  and  impulses 
and  wild  phantasms  that  come  in  revivals  of  religion." 
Now,  in  the  first  place,  I  say  that  there  is  not  a  com- 
munity on  this  continent  that  numbers  its  population 
by  many  thousands,  in  which  the  church  institutions 
are  sufficient  to  reach  the  want  of  the  whole  popula- 
tion. The  church  has  not  wings  broad  enough  to 
spread  over  the  whole  population  and  brood  it.  Even 
if  there  were  containing  power  enough  in  the  church 
edifices,  the  people  do  not  flow  into  them.  Though  the 
matter  has  been  debated  and  discussed,  and  though 
every  means  has  been  taken,  the  fact  remains  that  the 
mass  of  the  population  —  and,  if  you  take  the  con- 
tinent, I  think  I  may  say  two  thirds  of  the  population 
of  the  continent  of  America  —  to-day  seldom  epter 
churches.  Two  thirds  of  the  salvable  men  do  not  come 
within  the  influence  of  these  regular  institutions.  What 
are  you  going  to  do  for  them  ?  Is  everything  to  take 
the  gauge  of  these  fixed,  stationary  institutions,  which 
liave  in  them  almost  no  elasticity,  whose  very  peculiar- 
ity is  steadfastness,  continuity  in  the  same  ways  ? 

I  do  not  undervalue  the  stated  institutions  of  the 


THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  REVIVALS. 


221 


church,  —  which  I  take  to  be  the  household,  or  the 
church  itself,  with  all  its  schools,  and  all  the  schools  that 
are  brought  immediately  under  the  direct  evangelical 
influence  of  Christian  men.  All  these  are  permanent 
engines  doing  a  great  work,  which  is  not  to  be  maligned 
nor  undervalued  in  the  slightest  degree,  but  which  is 
supplemented  by  another  influence,  —  one  which  they 
are  seldom  able  to  exert,  but  which  is  indispensable 
for  the  whole  community. 

CHURCHES  THEMSELVES  NEED  REVIVING. 

Again,  I  think  that  stated  institutions  need  revivals 
just  as  much  as  people  do  outside  of  them.  The  ten- 
dency of  all  institutions  is  to  formalism.  Eegularity 
begets  formalism.  The  burden  and  the  grief  of  every 
man  that  ever  undertook  to  administer  in  a  college,  in  a 
theological  seminary,  or  in  a  church,  —  whether  with  or 
without  liturgy,  with  or  without  regular  service,  —  is 
the  constant  tendency  to  wear  ruts  and  to  make  dead 
machines  of  things.  One  of  the  crying  necessities  of 
the  church  and  of  its  institutions  is,  to  make  pro- 
vision in  some  way  for  the  rational,  the  inspirational. 
There  is  a  conflict  between  organization  and  the  irregu- 
lar but  genuine  impulses  of  men.  Spontaneity  and 
regularity,  or  organization,  are  at  war.  I  say  they 
ought  to  be  friends.  I  say  that  while  you  have  your 
forts  and  your  solid  armies,  you  need  also  your  cavalry, 
your  pickets  and  skirmishers  and  light  troops  of  every 
kind,  scouring  the  whole  region  around ;  and  that  re- 
vivals of  religion  are  nowhere  else  so  beneficial  and  so 
necessary  as  where  there  are  strong,  intrenched,  and 
highly  organized  religious  bodies.    They  need  just  this 


222 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


counteracting  influence.  It  is  purgation  to  them.  It 
clears  off  the  old  humors.  It  gives  to  them  new  life 
and  new  strength. 

NEEDS  OF   THOSE  WITHOUT  THE  CHURCH. 

I  have  said  that  revivals  are  necessary  to  the  churches 
themselves.  In  respect  to  the  great  mass  of  the  com- 
munity that  lies  outside  of  the  churches  they  are  indis- 
pensable ;  otherwise  such  people  will  live  and  die  almost 
under  the  eaves  of  churches,  without  having  experi- 
enced any  salutary  religious  influences.  I  do  not  now 
speak  of  the  dregs  of  society.  There  you  will  find  a 
class,  the  treatment  of  which  is  a  very  difficult  problem  ; 
but  that  is  another  and  a  different  case.  Go  above 
these  ;  go  among  the  ordinary,  the  working,  the  half- 
intelligent,  the  commonly  ignorant  people.  Go  into 
*  the  households.    Here  and  there  you  will  find  a  shrewd 

woman  ;  here  and  there  you  will  find  a  thoughtful 
man ;  but  take  common  folks  as  they  are,  and  my  own 
impression,  from  acquaintance  with  them,  is,  that  there 
are  very  few  households,  outside  of  Christian  churches, 
that  generate  moral  thoughts,  or  religious  thoughts,  or 
religious  impulses.  The  higher  feelings  are  extremely 
weak  in  them.  If  there  is  any  way  by  which  they  can 
be  reached  and  aroused,  it  must  be  by  some  means 
through  which  you  can  lift  the  whole  community,  — 
something  in  the  nature  of  these  revivals  of  which  we 
have  been  speaking. 

FANATICISM  :  HOW  PREVENTED. 

It  is  said  by  those  who  are  not  in  favor  of  revivals, 
that  they  tend  to  a  wild  fanaticism.    That  is  precisely 


THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  REVIVALS.  223 

as  if  a  man  should  dissuade  us  from  breaking  colts  and 
using  them  on  the  farm,  and  on  the  road,  by  saying 
that  horses  run  away.  So  they  do,  if  they  are  not  well 
broken  or  well  driven ;  but  I  have  never  regarded  that 
as  a  satisfactory  reason  why  horses  should  not  be  used. 
A  wild,  popular  impulse  may  run  away  with  the  com- 
munity. Let  me  say  here,  —  though  I  shall  have  occa- 
sion to  repeat  it  more  analytically  by  and  by,  —  revivals 
of  religion  are  violent  and  untamable  just  in  the  propor- 
tion in  which  they  are  rare.  They  become  amenable  to 
good  management  just  in  the  proportion  in  which  they 
are  frequent.  Where  communities  have  been  abso- 
lutely neglected,  when  the  fountains  of  moral  feeling 
are  for  the  first  time  in  many  years  broken  up,  then  you 
may  expect  catastrophe  ;  then  you  may  expect  a  flood 
on  the  community.  The  fault  lies  not  in  the  recur- 
rence of  life  ;  it  is  the  long  death  in  which  the  com- 
munity has  been  left  that  occasions  the  irregularities. 
The  rebound  will  be  just  in  proportion  to  the  long 
decline  and  apathy.  So  far  is  it  from  necessary  that 
revivals  of  religion  should  run  to  fanaticism,  they  are 
the  sweetest,  the  mildest,  the  most  regulable,  as  they 
are,  in  every  respect,  the  most  congenial  to  the  best 
human  nature,  of  all  the  states  of  religious  feeling  that 
prevail  in  a  community,  when  they  are  recognized, 
prayed  for,  and  dealt  with  fairly. 

LIFE  BETTER  THAN  DEATH. 

But  it  is  said  that  the  work  that  is  done  by  revivals 
of  religion  is  not  to  be  compared  in  quality  with  the 
work  that  is  done  by  churches  in  their  ordinary 
methods.    I  do  not  believe  it.    I  do  not  think  that  a 


224 


man  who  has  been  brought  into  the  kingdom  of  God 
through  the  instrumentality  of  the  church  is  likely 
to  be  any  better  than  one  who  has  been  brought  in 
through  the  instrumentality  of  a  great  and  powerful 
outpouring  of  the  Divine  Spirit.  There  may  be  some 
respects  in  which  he  would  be  even  less  excellent.  One 
thing  is  certain,  that  revivals  of  religion  do  bring  people 
up,  do  inspire  their  moral  nature,  do  root  them  out  of 
old  soil,  do  give  them  an  elevation  that  they  had  not 
before.  If,  as  a  result  of  this,  there  should  be  here  and 
there  miscarriages,  here  and  there  instances  of  failure, 
is  it  not  so  in  everything  ?  Does  every  single  head  of 
wheat  fill  out  in  the  harvest-field  ?  Does  all  fruit  ripen 
that  "  sets "  in  the  spring  ?  And  is  all  that  which 
swells  till  the  kisses  of  summer  bring  blushes  to  its 
cheek,  —  is  all  that  fit  for  the  bin  and  for  the  winter  ? 
Is  there  not  much  wastage  everywhere  ?  Do  all  people 
that  are  brought  up  in  regular  church  connection  turn 
out  well  ?  Are  there  not  failures  among  the  regulars  as 
well  as  among  the  militia  ?  It  is  said  that  these  re- 
vivals of  religion  pour  a  stream  of  raw,  uncultured 
men  upon  the  community.  No,  they  do  not ;  those 
men  were  in  the  community  before.  "  Ah !  but  they 
are  religious  now."  Then  you  would  rather  have  them 
dead  in  trespasses  and  sins,  and  regular,  than  to  have 
them  trying  to  be  better  men  and  scrambling  on  all 
fours  !  When  the  choice  is  life  or  death,  let  it  be  life. 
When  Lazarus  arose  from  the  grave  and  came  forth, 
bound  hand  and  foot,  what  if,  before  the  word  was 
given,  "  Loose  him,  and  take  off  his  head-piece  and  his 
shroud,"  he  had  stumbled  a  little,  and  the  di.^ciples 
had  said,  "Well,  this  raising  men  from  the  dead  is 


THE  i^HlLOSOPHY  OF  REVIVALS. 


225 


not  what  we  thought  it  was,  after  all ;  see  how  he 
stumbles  !"  When  men  have  been  dead  without 
knowing  it ;  when  men  have  been  long  dead,  till  they 
stink  in  their  vices  and  their  evil  habits,  —  pride,  self- 
ishness, worldliness,  —  anything  that  puts  in  them  the 
germ  of  life  is  better  than  that  long  propriety  of  damna- 
tion !    But  then,  respectability  rules  in  such  things. 

RELIGIOUS  EXCITEMENT  NOT  DANGEROUS. 

It  is  said  that,  during  revivals  of  religion,  men  come 
under  great  excitement,  and  do  things  which  they  would 
not  do  when  under  the  influence  of  calm  reason.  That 
is  true.  You  will  notice  that  nobody  is  afraid  of  ex- 
citement in  politics,  though  it  run  so  high  that  it  looks 
as  if,  at  the  touch  of  a  spark,  there  would  be  a 
universal  conflagration.  Nobody  is  afraid  of  over- 
excitement  in  Wall  Street.  Nobody  is  afraid  of  too 
high  excitement  in  the  ordinary  run  of  social  festivi- 
ties. It  is  only  when  men  begin  to  feel  that  they  are 
sinners  before  God,  and  that  they  need  to  be  born 
again,  and  begin  to  have  such  a  sense  of  heaven  that 
they  cannot  bear  to  lose  it ;  it  is  only  when  gross  mat- 
ter begins  to  die  out  of  sight,  and  ethereal  visions  come 
before  the  soul,  that  we  hear  men  croaking,  "  Modera- 
tion !  moderation  !  Let  your  moderation  be  known  to  all 
men."  Moderation  in  combativeness  ?  "  Let  that  fly  ! " 
Moderation  in  acquisitiveness  ?  No,  no ;  catch  and 
get,  catch  and  get."  Moderation  in  vanity,  moderation 
in  pride,  moderation  in  the  ten  thousand  baser  compli- 
ances of  life  ?  No,  nobody  is  distressed  about  modera- 
tion there.  But  when  there  is  immoderation  in  sor- 
row for  sin,  when  there  is  excitement,  lest  men  shall 
10*  o 


226 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


lose  their  souls,  then  some  begin  to  be  alarmed ; 
they  are  so  afraid  that  everybody  will  suddenly 
become  angelic  and  tumble  off  the  precipice  into 
heaven  !  Why,  that  is  not  the  danger ;  that  is  not  the 
direction  in  which  you  need  to  set  up  marks.  What  if,  on 
a  road  with  an  abyss  on  one  side  and  a  cliff  on  the  other, 
we  should  put  up  all  the  barriers  on  the  cliff  side  and 
leave  the  precipice  open ;  would  it  be  wise  ?  Are  we 
in  danger  of  too  much  and  too  continuous  excitement 
in  spiritual  directions  ?  Do  not  the  sounds  of  life 
drown  the  thunders  of  eternity  in  men's  ears  ?  Are 
there  not  ten  thousand  boiling  caldrons  of  passion 
and  feeling  underneath  them  ?  Is  not  every  great  in- 
terest of  society  pulling  upon  them  ?  —  the  household, 
the  store,  the  shop,  the  office,  all  processes  of  business 
and  of  civil  society  ?  Are  not  men  wrecked  with  the 
thousand  worldly  things  that  are  tending  to  undermine 
faith,  to  blind  spiritual  vision  ?  And  is  it  not  a  great 
grace  and  mercy  when,  even  if  it  comes  with  imperfec- 
tion, —  and  what  man  is  without  it  ?  —  there  is  an  ex- 
citement that  lifts  men  up  out  of  the  slough,  lifts  them 
out  of  all  their  entanglements  ? 

In  early  days,  in  Indianapolis,  when  the  city  was 
first  built,  an  old  settler  told  me  the  trees  were  so  thick 
in  the  streets  that  he  forgot  how  the  sky  looked,  and,  in 
order  to  see  it,  he  had  to  walk  a  mile  down  to  the  White 
Eiver.  There  he  could  look  up  and  see  all  the  sky. 
He  used  to  go  down  and  look  for  a  long  time,  it  was  so 
refreshing  to  his  eyes.  In  communities  where  business 
is  like  a  thick  forest  collected  overhead,  so  that  one 
cannot  see  the  stars  by  night  nor  the  skies  by  day, 
when  these  storms  of  life  come  on,  —  these  blessed 


THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  REVIVALS. 


227 


irruptions  of  revival  influence,  —  men  are  carried,  as  it 
were,  down  to  the  stream  where  they  can  see  the  whole 
heavens  above  them.  And  what  if,  under  such  circum- 
stances, there  is  some  little  excitement  ?  Cannot  you 
bear  with  it,  for  the  ends  it  looks  toward  ?  Anything  for 
life  !  There  is  no  heresy  on  earth  like  lethargy.  There 
is  nothing  so  deadly,  so  dangerous,  here  and  hereafter, 
as  to  go  on  from  month  to  month  in  a  calm  propriety, 
in  an  external  seeming,  and  yet  to  have  all  the  fountains 
of  feeling  that  bring  men  home  to  God  shut  up  and  frozen ! 

But  then  it  is  said  that,  when  men  come  under  these 
impetuous  influences,  these  high-toned  feelings,  it  results 
in  deceptions  and  in  spurious  conversions.  Certainly  it 
does.  I  do  not  know  any  economy  that  does  not  bring 
out  those  results.  Men  that  attempt  to  come  into  the 
kingdom  of  God  head-first  are  just  as  liable  to  go  wrong 
as  those  that  go  heart-first :  I  think  they  are  more 
liable  to  go  wrong.  The  regular  church  is  to  revivals 
what  greenhouses  are  to  the  summer.  Greenhouses 
do  very  well ;  they  make  heat ;  they  have  their  own 
stove  and  stoker ;  all  they  want  is  brought  into  their 
little  space ;  and  when,  by  and  by,  the  robins  and  blue- 
birds come,  and  the  elms  begin  to  bud,  and  the  maples 
show  their  tassels,  and  people  say  that  summer  is  abroad 
in  the  land,  the  old  gardener  walks  out,  and  says,  Look 
here,  I  don't  like  this  summer.  There  are  no  toads  in 
my  house,  but  there  will  be  toads  abroad  now  soon. 
Snakes  don't  get  in  here,  this  is  safe  ;  but  there  will  be 
snakes  in  the  woods  if  summer  comes.  It  won't  do 
for  us  to  have  this  thing  all  over  the  land."  Summer, 
if  it  does  bring  mosquitoes,  is  more  desirable  than  are 
greenhouses  for  vegetation,  for  fruit,  or  for  anything  else. 


228 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


HIGH  FEELING  AND  CLEAR  SEEING. 

Then,  as  to  the  spuriousness  of  conversions.  In  re- 
vivals where  there  has  been  an  ordinary  —  not  an 
extraordinary,  but  simply  an  ordinary  —  degree  of 
care ;  where  there  has  been  a  thorough  wedding  of 
feeling  and  intellection,  —  and  they  are  never  to  be 
divorced,  —  where  the  work  has  been  seriously  entered 
upon  and  judiciously  conducted,  my  impression  is  that 
there  are  fewer  mistakes  made  than  under  any  other 
circumstances.  For  this  reason  :  there  is  never  a  time 
when  the  mind  conceives  so  clearlv  as  when  it  is  acting 
under  high  stimulus.  Its  thoughts  are  clearer,  its  in- 
tentions are  better,  its  decisions  are  keener ;  and  if  it 
takes  ground,  it  is  far  more  apt  to  take  ground  by  de- 
cision, that  is,  real  decision,  than  when  it  is  acting  in 
a  low,  lethargic  state.  If  you  want  to  weld  together 
two  pieces  of  iron,  and  you  hammer  them  when  they  are 
cold,  you  will  be  hot  before  you  can  get  them  together 
so  that  they  will  stick.  But  take  them  when  they  are 
hot  and  put  them  together,  and  they  will  be  welded  by 
a  few  blows  so  that  they  will  not  break  asunder.  Get 
men  at  a  welding  heat,  and  then  the  way  of  life  and 
duty  becomes  simple  and  plain.  First  and  last,  the 
operations  of  the  mind  are  more  thorough,  surer, 
healthier,  and  better,  in  a  condition  of  healthful  excite- 
ment than  in  a  low  state  of  feeling.  I  stand  for  life. 
Life  is  health  and  activity. 

RELIGIOUS  INSANITY. 

It  is  said,  "  Are  not  many  persons  made  crazy  by  the 
excitement  under  which  they  are  dealt  with  in  these 


THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF. REVIVALS. 


229 


revivals  of  religion  ?  "  Yes,  some.  There  are  some 
that  would  be  made  crazy  by  any  excitement.  But  I 
have  been  watching  in  New  York  and  Brooklyn,  dur- 
ing all  the  time  that  T  have  been  there,  now  nearly 
twenty-six  years,  and  I  have  never  had  to  deal  with 
a  person  in  my  congregation  that  was  made  insane 
by  religion ;  and  yet  I  suppose  I  have  conversed  with  a 
thousand  persons  that  were  under  very  deep  religious 
impressions.  But  I  have  seen  man  after  man, — I  could 
point  to  nearly  twenty  within  my  own  personal  neigh- 
borhood a,nd  knowledge,  —  that  have  been  taken  from 
their  stores,  and  brokers'  shops,  and  other  places  of  that 
kind,  to  the  retreats  for  the  insane,  because  of  the  ex- 
citements of  business.  Twenty  men  may  wear  them- 
selves out  in  business  and  die,  either  from  softening  of 
the  brain  or  hardening  of  the  heart,  and  nobody  says  a 
word  about  that  !  But  if,  in  attempting  to  live  a  better 
life,  there  are  one  or  two  among  a  thousand,  so  organ- 
ized that  they  cannot  bear  any  excitement,  and  certain- 
ly not  such  an  excitement  as  religion  naturally  creates, 
these  are  marked  and  held  up  as  scarecrows. 

REVIVALS  RAISE  THE  TONE  OF  CHURCH  PIETY.  . 

But  it  is  said  that,  by  revivals  of  religion,  the  church 
is  likely  to  be  filled  up  with  unmanageable  masses  of 
men  ;  that  revivals,  as  it  were,  bolt  food  into  the  church, 
whicli,  if  it  were  taken  slowly  and  by  mouthfuls,  mas- 
ticated and  digested,  would  become  real  strength,  but 
now  lies  like  a  burden  in  the  church.  Well,  my  reply 
to  that  is  this  :  It  is  conceivable  that,  in  some  cir- 
cumstances, such  a  result  might  follow,  and  especially 
in  communities  that  are  at  a  low  ebb  of  moral  or  intel- 


230 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


lectual  culture.  It  is  quite  possible  that  that  might  be 
the  case  where  the  administration  in  the  church  itself 
is  lax  and  careless.  But  where  the  church  is  intelli- 
gent, and  filled  with  genuine  religious  feeling,  and 
w^here  there  is  anything  like  a  proper  activity  in 
taking  care  of  the  products  of  the  revivals,  the  mem- 
bership of  the  church  is  raised,  not  lowered,  in  moral 
tone.  When  an  iceberg  breaks  off  from  the  frozen 
rivers  of  the  north  and  comes  sailing  gradually  towards 
the  south,  it  cools  all  the  waters  as  it  goes,  clear  down 
into  the  temperate  latitudes.  Its  influence  is  felt  even 
upon  the  atmosphere.  But  when  southern  waters  go 
pouring  up  the  Gulf  Stream  to  the  north,  they  carry 
heat  that  is  felt  in  all  the  atmosphere  and  in  all  the 
seas  through  the  vast  circuit,  till  it  beats  upon  the 
shores  of  England,  of  Norway,  and  of  Sweden.  It 
carries  witli  it  something  of  the  tropic  summer  all  the 
way.  When  we  have  revivals  of  religion  and  receive 
multitudes  into  the  church,  they  are  not  icebergs ;  they 
are  Gulf  Streams  from  the  warm  south  ;  they  bring  into 
the  church,  not  chill,  not  death,  but  life  and  warmth 
and  joy.  These  are  facts  which  I  do  know,  which  are 
on  record  ;  facts  about  which  tlie  experience  of  thou- 
sands of  men  of  different  denominations  and  varying 
temperaments  agrees. 

Eevivals  of  religion  are  pre-eminently  desirable,  be- 
cause they  arouse  individuals  ;  because  they  carry  up 
those  that  were  Christians  already  to  a  higher  pitch  of 
experience ;  because  they  renovate  the  churclies  them- 
selves ;  and  because  they  do  a  work  for  scattered  popu- 
lations in  outlying  communities  which  would  never 
otherwise  have  been  done.    There  are  multitudes  of 


THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  'REVIVALS. 


231 


men  that  could  never  get  away  from  the  current  of 
their  business,  that  could  never  face  the  public  senti- 
ment, the  social  current  of  the  community,  unless  the 
community  itself  became  warmed,  leavened,  aglow  with 
moral  influences.  Then  they  would  go  with  the  stream  ; 
and  there  are  thousands  of  men  who  in  that  way  come 
into  the  kingdom  of  God,  but  who  never  would  have 
come  into  it  up  stream. 

For  reasons,  then,  of  spiritual  thrift  in  the  individual, 
of  strengthening  the  church  of  humanity  towards  the 
poor,  the  weak,  the  outcast,  I  think  we  have  occasion  to 
bless  God  for  these  outpourings  of  the  Spirit,  that  come 
as  the  wind  comes,  we  know  not  always  whence,  and 
that  go  as  the  wind  goes,  we  know  not  always  whither ; 
but  which,  like  the  wind  in  the  mariner's  sail,  may  be 
so  studied  and  so  used  that  there  shall  be  over  it  a 
substantial  control. 

QUESTIONS  AND  ANSVi^ERS. 

Q.  What  is  your  observation  as  to  the  tendency  of  religious 
revivals  to  the  promotion  of  religious  knowledge  and  the  intellec- 
tual character  of  the  community  ? 

Mr.  Beecher.  —  It  is  precisely  what  you  choose  to 
make  it.  A  revival  of  religion  leaves  the  minds  of  the 
community  open  as  the  furrows  are.  If  you  choose  to 
sow  the  seed  of  knowledge,  it  will  grow  and  thrive 
wonderfully.  If  you  neglect  that,  and  throw  into  the 
furrows  mere  executive  activity,  that  will  be  the  crop. 
Of  all  things  in  this  world,  I  believe  there  is  nothing 
that  is  more  under  the  law  of  cause  and  effect  than  re- 
vivals of  religion.  And,  although  they  are  divine  in 
the  most  important  sense,  yet  they  belong  to  that  side 


232 


LECTUKES  ON  PREACHING. 


of  Divinity  wliich  lies  nearest  us,  and  are  entirely  sub- 
ject to  our  control  by  the  appropriate  use  of  instru- 
mentality. 

Q.  According  to  your  observation,  under  what  we  recognize  as 
the  revival  influence,  does  n't  a  man  want  to  know  something:  does 
he  not  hunger  after  some  reHgious  knowledge  ?  Or  does  the  re- 
vival influence  leave  him  entirely  indifferent  as  to  the  truth  ? 

Mr.  Beecher.  —  If  it  ever  leaves  men  indifferent,  it 
is  somewhere  where  I  have  never  been.  I  have  always 
found  that  not  only  those  that  were  brought  in  became 
hungry  for  increased  knowledge,  but  it  was  peculiarly  so 
with  the  old  stock.  It  was  like  a  stirring  up  of  the  soil 
around  the  roots  of  a  tree ;  you  had  growth  all  around. 

Q.  Is  n't  there  a  tendency  to  reaction  and  increased  coldness  ? 

Mr.  Beecher.  —  If  you  draw  a  line  across  a  man's 
head,  half-way  between  the  top  and  the  base,  every  one 
of  the  faculties  below  it,  when  violently  excited,  tends 
to  reaction.  If  you  take  the  faculties  above,  which  we 
call  moral  or  divine,  if  they  have  anything  like  fair 
usage,  there  is  no  reaction  to  them.  If  you  rouse  men 
up  by  the  basilar  faculties  and  fill  them  with  horror  and 
all  sorts  of  lurid  phantasma,  look  out  for  a  reaction, — 
you  ought  to  have  one.  But  if  revivals  of  religion 
come  in  with  hope,  with  love,  with  courage,  with  faith, 
—  in  other  words,  if  they  are  brought  in  by  gospel  influ- 
ences in  distinction  from  legal  influences,  —  they  are 
not  subject  to  reaction.  So  far  from  it,  I  think  a  man 
can  work  twenty  years  at  the  very  top  of  all  his  strengtli, 
if  he  is  working  by  love  and  courage  and  hope.  Those 
things  never  tire  out.  That  is  what  Christ  meant  by 
saying  that  there  shall  be  rivers  of  living  water  in  men. 
They  are  waters  which,  if  a  man  have,  he  does  not 


THE  PHILOSOPHY  OP  REVIVALS. 


233 


thirst ;  it  is  bread  which,  if  a  man  have,  he  does  not 
hunger.  He  lives  on  it  more  than  forty  days,  —  he  lives 
forty  years. 

Q.  According  to  your  statement,  the  half-educated  ought  to 
have  revivals ;  but  what  shall  we  do  with  the  educated  ? 

Mr.  Beecher.  —  In  the  fullest  sense  of  the  term 
"  education,"  no  man  is  educated  that  is  not  a  Christian. 
A  man  is  not  educated  who  merely  has  his  knoioiny 
faculties  whetted,  sharpened.  A  man  is  educated  only 
when  all  parts  of  his  nature  are  brought  np  to  high  con- 
dition. In  our  time  I  do  not  think  any  man  is  educated 
who  has  not  gone  through  the  strata  of  Christianity,  if  I 
might  so  say.  But  a  great  many  men  that  are  intellec- 
tually wise  are  just  as  much  and  as  really  the  subjects 
of  revival  inflnences  as  anybody.  I  have  seen  men  in 
every  way  my  masters  in  all  intellectual  knowledge, 
who  were  made  like  little  children.  In  my  parishes  in 
the  West,  I  have  seen  men  who  came  out  from  New 
England,  where  they  had  been  for  more  than  forty 
years  in  churches,  —  and  I  think  a  man  that  has  been 
in  a  good  old-fashioned  New  England  church  for  forty 
years,  without  being  converted,  is  like  a  side  of  sole- 
leather  that  has  been  in  a  tan-vat  for  ten  years  ;  he  is 
so  tough  that  if  there  is  anything  that  can  affect  him  it 
must  be  divine,  —  and  yet  I  have  seen  these  men  melt- 
ing down  like  little  children,  and  made  truly  and 
thoroughly  amiable  Christian  men. 

Some  one  asked  with  reference  to  revivals  in  colleges,  and 
whether  revivals  were  to  be  looked  for  in  connection  with  college 
instruction. 

Mr.  Beecher.  —  I  do  not  know  why  they  should  not 
be.    If  you  once  get  awaj^  froi^  the  idea  of  their  awful- 


234 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


ness  ;  if  you  once  get  clear  of  the  notion  that  they  are 
directly  and  solely  acts  of  the  Divine  sovereignty  ;  if 
you  assume  that  they  are  just  as  much  the  subject  of 
human  volition  and  arrangement  as  moral  insti  action 
of  other  kinds,  —  tlien  I  do  not  know  why  revivals  of 
religion  might  not  be  had  in  every  class  in  academies 
and  colleges,  and  that  without  disarrangement  of  affairs. 
A  revival  of  religion  is  nothinor  in  tlie  world  but  a 
religious  feeling  in  its  intense  and  social  form,  so  that  it 
becomes  contagious,  electric.  It  is  not  an  abnormal  or 
unnatural  condition ;  it  is  not  one  hard  to  produce. 

Q.  You  know,  sir,  what  revivals  have  done  for  your  alma  mater, 
for  WilHams,  and  for  Yale,  in  former  years.  It  is  said  that,  in  col- 
leges and  universities,  revivals  are  to  be  looked  for  less  frequently 
than  in  the  primitive  state.  Is  that  so,  in  your  observation,  and,  if 
so,  how  do  you  account  for  it  ? 

Mr.  Beecher.  —  I  will  say,  fairly,  that  I  have  not 
given  to  the  subject  any  particular  inrestigation.  I 
am  not  aware  of  the  facts.  I  only  know  this,  that  I 
think  there  are  speculative  tendencies  unsetthng  the 
minds  of  men  that  preach,  as  well  as  of  men  that  are 
preached  to,  in  our  day.  That  transitional  state  through 
which  we  are  passing  has  rather  broken  the  power  of 
faith.  Men  don't  exactly  know  whether  they  believe 
in  certain  things  or  not.  When  you  have  that  state  of 
mind  in  the  community,  you  will  not  have  revivals.  A 
man  has  got  to  believe.  If  he  doubts,  he  is  damned. 
I  should  rather  attribute  the  decadence  or  the  infre- 
quency  of  revivals,  as  a  general  result,  to  the  transitional 
state  of  mind  through  which,  it  seems  to  me,  the  whole 
community  is  going.  It  seems  to  me  the  whole  com- 
munity is  moving  in  the  direction  of  a  revolution. 


THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  REVIVALS. 


235 


There  are  a  great  many  people  frightened,  a  great  many 
anxious,  and  a  great  many  are  taking  refuge  in  the  old 
forms,  in  order  to  get  away  from  what  seems  to  be  com- 
ing-.  And  that  unsettled  state  is  not  favorable  for  the 
production  of  positive  results. 

Q.  Don't  you  think  those  lurid  influences  are  relied  upon  too 
extensively  ? 

Mr.  Beecher.  —  Yes,  sir,  they  are  largely  relied  upon 
by  revivalists.  Most  revivalists  that  I  have  known  are 
men  with  immense  bellies  and  immense  chests  and  big 
under-heads.  They  are  men  that  carry  a  great  deal  of 
personal  magnetism  with  them,  a  sensuous  magnetism, 
too,  and  they  have  a  great  power  of  addressing  the 
under-mind ;  and  they  will  set  feelings  undulating  like 
waves,  and  will  carry  men  on  them.  I  do  not  believe 
you  could  preach  with  effect  to  the  boatmen  and  the 
gamblers  of  Arkansas  and  to  all  the  riffraff  of  the 
community,  those  who  really  live  down  in  the  cellar  of 
their  heads,  unless  you  brought  the  motive  of  fear  to 
bear  upon  them.  If  you  could  in  any  way  bring  the 
hiofher  feelinc^  in  their  natures  to  act  in  and  of  itself 
upon  the  lower  ones,  there  would  be  regeneration  in 
that  direction.  But,  ordinarily,  men  that  work  among 
those  classes  are  men  largely  of  the  earth,  blessed  with 
vigorous  circulation  and  great  power  of  throwing  out 
sympathetic  influence  upon  men  ;  and  because  they 
preach  largely  to  the  under-class,  men  who  are  moved 
by  conscience  and  by  nothing  else,  they  preach  these 
acerb  and  terrific  doctrines,  and  preach  them  with  all 
the  imagery  that  has  come  down  to  us  from  the  medi- 
aeval times,  with  hoofs  and  horns,  and  all  manner  of 
exaggerated  statements.    I  have  heard  a  revivalist  in 


2S6 


LECTURES  ON  I^REACHINa. 


my  pulpit  make  statements  to  my  congregation  that,  if 
I  believed  them  to  be  true,  would  make  me  abandon 
the  Christian  ministry, —  I  was  going  to  say,  abandon 
decent  society  and  forswear  my  race !  The  thing  was 
so  hideous  !  He  stood  there,  —  and  afterwards,  when  I 
was  with  him,  it  appeared  that  he  had  no  compunction, 
—  and  he  began  with  this  declaration,  that  the  mind 
was  capable  of  infinite  development  and  increase  of 
capacity.  Well,  that  is  pure  supposition,  to  start  with. 
But,  assuming  that,  he  went  on  to  say  that  it  would  go 
on  increasing  forever  in  power  of  thought,  and  power  of 
susceptibility,  and  power  of  enjoyment,  and  power  of 
suffering.  That  being  granted,  he  went  on  to  say,  that 
if  men  go  to  hell  they  will  increase  for  ever  and  ever ; 
and  when  he  came  to  the  application,  it  was  tliis.  I 
have  no  doubt,"  said  he,  and  his  great  white  eye 
glistened  as  he  rolled  it  around  the  audience, "  that  there 
are  men  sitting  before  me  who  will  by  and  by  be  in 
hell,  and  will  have  grown  and  grown  and  grown  in  the 
power  of  suffering  until  they  will  have  reached  a  point 
at  which  they  will  suffer  more  in  a  single  minute  than 
all  the  suffering  of  all  the  damned  from  the  begin- 
ning of  creation  to  the  present  hour ! "  There  was  his 
logical  inference  ;  and  then  he  multiplied  it  and  went 
on,  saying  that  there  would  be  multitudes  and  multi- 
tudes of  them  there,  while  angels  were  singing  glory  to 
God,  and  while  God  was  looking  over  into  the  pit  and 
seeing  that  terrific  scene,  enjoying  himself  ;  he  wanted 
me  to  believe  that,  and  then  worship  God  !  Now,  where 
you  deal  with  men  in  communities  in  that  way,  it  is 
you  who  are  to  blame ;  for  the  reactions  are  something 
very  terrific  in  revivals. 


THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  REVIVALS. 


237 


Q.  Is  n't  that  the  style  which  reaches  children,  also  ? 

Mr.  Beecher.  —  It  reaches  them,  —  hideously,  too. 
I  remember,  in  my  childhood,  when  a  minister  came  to 
my  father's  house,  I  was  like  a  thermometer.  You  can- 
not open  the  stove  door  that  the  thermometer  does  not 
feel  it  instantly ;  and  so  it  goes  up  and  down,  as  sensi- 
tive as  it  can  be.  My  spiritual  nature  was  just  as  sen- 
sitive to  religious  impulses.  I  was  always  plunged  into 
the  depth  of  despair  about  my  sins,  always  in  a  state 
of  awful  anxiety  to  be  converted  and  to  have  the  evi- 
dence of  it  in  myself.  This  man,  whoever  he  was,  — 
his  name  has  gone  from  me,  —  took  my  brother  Charles 
and  me,  and  began  to  tell  us  stories  about  the  Devil  and 
hell,  until  I  had  got  into  that  state  that  I  now  wonder 
I  did  not  go  into  convulsions.  It  was  hideous.  If  he 
had  put  me  on  a  hot  gridiron  and  left  me  there  ten 
minutes,  I  could  have  got  over  tha,t,  but  this  soul-broil- 
ing, this  torturing  a  little  child's  sensitive  nature  in 
that  way,  without  presenting  any  thought  of  mercy  or 
love  or  goodness  or  Christ  Jesus,  —  why  !  tlie  man  was 
a  heathen,  only  he  had  a  Christian  coat  on  him  ! 

Q.  Do  you  believe  in  preaching  to  flee  the  wrath  to  come  ? 

Mr.  Beecher.  —  Certainly  I  do. 

Q.  Did  you  mean  to  state  that,  in  preaching  to  those  lower 
classes,  you  have  to  use  appeals  to  their  lower  nature  ? 

Mr.  Beecher.  —  I  state  this  :  that  any  man  who  will 
begin,  in  any  community,  preaching  to  those  who  are 
morally  dead  and  uncultured,  will  generally  find  that 
he  has  to  use  far  more  acerb  and  violent  presentations 
than  he  will  afterwards.  And,  if  he  preaches  success- 
fully, and  preaches  there  for  five  years  or  ten  years,  he 


238 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


will  find,  as  his  preaching  carries  people  up  to  higher 
levels  in  their  own  nature,  that  the  same  motives  will 
not  any  longer  produce  the  same  effect ;  that  he  has  got 
to  go  higher  in  his  motives,  and,  preaching  on  that 
higher  level,  he  will  yet  go  to  a  still  higher  one.  He  is 
carried,  all  the  way  along,  to  higher  and  higher  classes 
of  motive.  My  own  preaching  in  the  East  is  not  at  all 
what  it  was  in  the  West.  It  is  addressed  to  a  totally 
different  class  and  totally  different  conditions  of  society. 

Q.  Should  the  pastor  allow  evangelists  to  take  charge  of  a 
revival  and  assume  control  ? 

Mr.  Beechek.  —  That  is  a  very  large  question.  I 
should  never  allow  any  evangelist  to  take  charge  of 
any  meetings  in  my  church.  But  if  he  is  stronger  than 
you  are,  what  are  you  going  to  do  about  it  ?  You  go 
out  now  and  look  at  the  white-oak  trees,  and  you  will 
see  that  they  have  held  on  to  their  leaves  all  the  winter 
long,  just  as  many  churches  hold  on  to  old,  dry  minis- 
ters. And  you  will  see  that  the  moment  the  sap  begins 
to  start  in  those  trees  and  grow,  every  one  of  those  old 
leaves  will  go.  So  with  many  and  many  a  man  who 
has  pastoral  charge  of  a  church  ;  the  moment  the  church 
begins  to  swell,  off  he  will  go.  It  is  a  very  dangerous 
thing  to  have  a  revival  of  religion,  unless  a  man  is 
w^de-awake,  useful,  and  active  in  his  church.  And  it  is 
a  very  dangerous  thing  for  a  man  to  build  a  church 
edifice  unless  he  is  a  very  able,  powerful  man.  A  new 
church  has  often  unsettled  a  minister.  The  impulse 
that  gives  vitality,  ambition,  and  movement  to  the 
church,  —  a  man  must  keep  ahead  of  it ;  if  he  does  not, 
he  will  have  to  go. 


THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  REVIVALS. 


239 


Q.  Do  you  think  that  preaching  on  doctrinal  points  is  deaden- 
ing in  a  religious  community  ? 

Mr.  Beecher.  —  Yes,  if  a  man  deals  too  much  in  it, 
it  is  deadening;  it  is  mephitic  gas.  If  you  want  to 
speculate,  speculate  moderately,  but  don't  get  into  an 
eddy,  a  whirlpool,  and  go  round  and  round,  and  shut 
yourself  up  to  that  thing.  If  a  man  wants  to  study, 
let  him  keep  that  up,  but  keep  close  to  folks,  and  feel 
the  reality  of  human  life,  the  need  of  men.  I  am  just 
as  subject  to  scepticism  as  any  man  could  possibly  be, 
all  the  time ;  and  I  have  kept  my  head  above  water  in 
a  real,  living  faith  in  God  and  humanity,  by  working 
on  the  living,  palpitating  heart  of  men.  Take  a  living 
soul  into  your  bosom,  and  it  will  give  you  life. 

Q.  Do  you  think  it  possible  for  a  man  to  be  converted  under 
the  influence  of  fear,  unless  that  fear  goes  so  far  as  to  secure  a 
knowledge  of  the  love  of  God  ? 

Mr.  Beecher.  —  I  make  just  the  same  distinction 
between  a  man's  being  a  religious  man  and  a  Christian 
man,  as  I  do  between  a  shrub  in  leaf  and  a  shrub  in 
blossom.  I  do  not  think  that  more  than  half  the 
people  that  come  into  our  churches  are  anything  more 
than  religious ;  they  are  converted  to  religion,  but  not 
to  Christianity.  They  are  converted  to  the  sense  of 
duty,  to  the  will  that  means  to  do  right,  but  they  are 
not  converted  to  that  faith  that  works  by  love. 

To  excite  fear  is  to  produce  life  and  motion.  It  is 
the  initial  step  to  arouse  a  man  to  that  state  by  which 
you  can  carry  him  forward  to  higher  states.  But  I  do 
not  think  that  fear,  in  and  of  itself,  ever  wrought  love 
or  ever  wiU  work  love. 


IX. 


REVIVALS  SUBJECT  TO  LAW. 

LBEET  BAENES,  in  speaking  on  the  sub- 
ject of  revivals  of  religion,  says,  "  The  phe- 
nomenon itself  we  regard  as  the  work  of 
the  Holy  Ghost,  alike  beyond  human  power 
to  produce  it  and  to  control  it."  And  then  he  quotes 
the  passage,  "  The  wind  bloweth  where  it  listeth,  and 
thou  hearest  the  sound  thereof,  but  canst  not  tell 
whence  it  cometh  and  whither  it  goeth  :  so  is  every  one 
that  is  born  of  the  Spirit " ;  an  illustration  which 
was  very  pertinent  before  the  establishment  of  the 
Meteorological  Bureau  ;  but,  unfortunately  for  a  literal 
application  of  it  now,  we  know  where  the  wind  comes 
from  and  very  nearl}^  where  it  is  going  to.  Still,  the 
figure  is  just  as  good,  and  the  truth  is  more  than  all 
figure,  and  that  remains  constant.  Now,  it  would  be 
fair  to  say  that  this  language  admits  of  two  construc- 
tions. One  of  these  would  equally  apply  to  all  phe- 
nomena of  the  human  mind,  —  thought,  feeling,  voli- 
tion. The  other  construction  would  put  all  the  history 
which  is  developed  under  the  supposed  personal  agency 
of  the  Divine  Spirit  of  God  outside  of  the  pale  of  scien- 


REVIVALS  SUBJECT  TO  LAW. 


241 


tific  observation,  of  reasoning,  of  deduction.  It  is  in 
fact,  I  suppose,  in  that  place  that  Mr.  Barnes  would 
have  put  revivals  of  religion.  I  suppose  he  would  have 
said  that  all  nature,  meaning  thereby  the  physical  uni- 
verse, is  governed  by  laws,  and  that  by  the  study  of 
these  we  may  understand  and  control  them ;  but  that 
God's  work  in  the  human  soul  is  secret,  mysterious, 
without  law  known  to  men,  unstudiable  ;  that  it  de- 
pends upon  the  sovereignty  of  God  ;  that  God  works  as 
he  will,  meaning  by  "  as  he  will,"  that  he  works  with- 
out any  sense  of  law  or  any  definite  or  permanent  chan- 
nel ;  and  that,  therefore,  spiritual  phenomena  stand  out- 
side of  mental  philosophy,  if  by  mental  philosophy  we 
understand  the  exposition  of  the  great  natural  laws 
which  regulate  human  thought  and  human  feeling. 
This,  I  know,  was  the  feeling  that  prevailed  in  my 
childhood.  I  know  that  such  men  as  Dr.  Heman  Hum- 
phrey and  Professor  Edwai'd  Hitchcock,  for  moral  com- 
pleteness and  for  sturdy  and  rugged  understanding,  — 
the  latter  for  scientific  attainment  also,  in  his  own  day, — 
were  not  to  be  despised.  Yet  I  recollect  going  down  to 
Dr.  Humphrey's  under  a  state  of  prodigious  mental 
excitement  in  my  own  behalf,  and  asking  for  some 
instruction,  that  I  might  ease  myself  of  my  burden 
and  be  brought  to  a  saving  knowledge  of  Christ ;  and 
he  said  to  me,  "  My  young  friend,  you  are  manifestly 
under  the  strivings  of  God's  Spirit,  and  I  dare  not 
touch  the  ark  with  profane  hand.  The  Spirit  of 
God,  when  he  strives  with  a  man,  is  his  own  best 
interpreter."  And  so  he  left  me  to  the  work  of  the 
Spirit.  Whereas,  if  I  had  had  but  a  very  little  clear 
instruction,  it  would  have  saved  me  years  of  anxiety, 

TOU  II.  11  P 


242 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


and,  at  times,  of  positive  anguish,  for  want  of  knowl- 
edge. The  impression  in  Dr.  Humphrey's  mind  was, 
that  the  work  of  the  Spirit  was  of  a  kind  so  sacred,  so 
apart  from  all  law  and  exposition,  that  it  was  not  safe 
for  a  man  to  undertake  to  interpret  it.  I  recollect,  in 
a  meeting  held  during  the  same  revival,  going  myself,  — 
although  I  was  then  a  member  of  the  church,  —  to  be 
conversed  with  by  Professor  Hitchcock.  He  came  down 
on  the  side  of  the  house  on  which  I  sat,  until  he  nearly 
reached  my  seat ;  then,  turning  from  me,  he  walked  back 
to  the  desk  and  said,  substantially,  "  I  see  that  this 
room  is  filled  with  the  Spirit  of  God.  I  am  awed  and 
subdued.  I  dare  not  attempt  to  mingle  human  wis- 
dom with  the  workings  of  the  Spirit  of  God."  Now, 
the  reverence,  the  humility,  and  the  childlikeness  of 
the  man  were  admirable ;  yet  I  cannot  but  think  the 
whole  judgment  and  feeling  in  respect  to  the  work  of 
the  Spirit  were  wrong,  and  not  only  inconsistent  with 
the  truth,  but  utterly  inconsistent  with  the  administra- 
tion, in  other  departments,  of  both  Professor  Hitchcock 
and  Dr.  Humphrey  themselves.  They  were  perpetually 
laying  the  foundations  of  procedure  in  matters  that  be- 
longed, according  to  their  own  definitions  and  showing, 
to  the  province  of  spiritual  enlightenment.  They  did 
prepare  with  great  skill ;  they  did  lay  out  paths  where 
men  might  walk,  expecting  certain  results  to  follow. 
They  did,  in  a  latent  way,  —  in  a  way,  perhaps,  not  so 
clearly  announced  as  we  enunciate  it, —  they  did  imply, 
in  their  other  spheres  of  labor,  that  cause  and  effect 
ruled  in  spiritual  things,  as  in  intellectual  and  material 
things,  and  that  the  foundation  of  knowledge  was  the 
study  of  the  methods  of  the  Divine  economy,  so  that 


REVIVALS  SUBJECT  TO  LAW. 


243 


men  might  co-operate  with  God.  And  that  study,  by 
implication,  requires  that  we  should  believe  the  meth- 
ods by  which  God  acts  to  be  stated,  to  be  constant. 
Not  but  that  there  is  a  Divine  Spirit  working  according 
to  its  own  free  will.  So,  also,  do  I  work  according  to 
my  free  will,  and  here,  on  you,  turning  this  way,  or  that 
way,  or  the  other ;  but  I  always,  when  freest,  act  along 
the  line  of  certain  definite  mental  peculiarities  in  my- 
self, according  to  the  law  of  the  structure  of  my  mind, 
and  always  produce  impressions  on  you,  according  to 
the  working  of  the  laws  in  your  mind.  And  yet  I  am 
free.  I  am  free  to  reason,  to  appeal,  to  persuade,  to 
pour  one  or  another  motive,  by  sympathy,  upon  tlie 
congregation.  Freedom  does  not  imply  that  one  does 
not  move  along  traveled  roads  ;  does  not  imply  caprice, 
fitfulness,  and  perpetual  unlikeness  of  method  to 
method.  The  freedom  of  the  Divine  Spirit,  the  free- 
dom of  God's  will,  does  not  require  that  he  shall 
never  do  twice  alike,  so  that  we  cannot  follow  his 
footsteps,  or  know  how  he  works,  as  well  as  ivJiat. 

I  remember  that  in  the  earlier  revivals  —  the  revivals 
of  my  childhood  —  nothing  was  so  impressive  as  Mr. 
Nettleton's  constant,  emphatic,  and,  I  may  say,  awful 
recognition  of  the  Divine  Spirit.  He  so  represented 
the  Spirit  of  God  as  to  make  everybody  quake  in  his 
shoes.  I  think  he  had  the  art  of  inspiring  fear,  with- 
out denunciation,  in  a  very  much  higher  way  than  usu- 
ally belongs  to  preaching  of  the  same  general  class. 
But  then  his  representation  of  the  Divine  Spirit  was, 
that  God  was  a  jealous  God,  a  sensitive  Being.  And 
he  would  whisper  this  utterance,  Take  care  that  you 
do  not  grieve  the  Spirit  of  God  ! "    Why,  I  felt  like  a 


244 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


man  walking  in  the  midst  of  torpedoes,  —  I  did  not 
know  where  they  were  ;  but  I  might  step  on  one,  and 
away  I  should  go  !  It  was  a  vague  terror.  I  was  full 
of  fear ;  afraid  to  go  to  the  right  or  to  the  left,  forward 
or  backward,  up  or  down.  I  felt  that  the  whole  air  was 
full  of  a  sensitive,  jealous  spirit  that  was  ready  to  smite 
down,  I  knew  not  when,  or  how,  or  where.  I  only 
felt,  in  a  general  way,  that  I  was  a  sinner,  and  tliat 
God  was  ready  to  strike  me,  and  that  if  I  could  not  get 
under  the  lightning-rod,  where  the  flash  would  be  car- 
ried off,  I  should  be  gone.  It  produced  an  intense 
moral  nervousness ;  but,  in  a  sensitive  nature  such  as 
mine  was,  it  overacted.  An  obtuse  nature  it  would 
hardly  bring  up  to  the  point ;  but  in  others  it  would 
overwork,  and  produce  that  kind  of  curdling  of  the 
blood  out  of  which  comes  no  good,  but  much  mischief. 

THE  DIVINE  SPIRIT  NOT  CAPRICIOUS. 

Now,  in  regard,  not  simply  to  revivals  of  religion, 
which  I  believe  to  be  the  work  of  the  Divine  Spirit, 
but  to  the  whole  department  of  spiritual  experiences, 
I  say  they  are  in  analogy  with  mental  experiences  ; 
not  that  they  are  on  the  same  level,  but  that  the  ad- 
ministration of  God  over  the  human  soul  is  in  analogy 
with  his  administration  over  the  lower  or  physical  ele- 
ments in  man,  the  intermediate  emotions  of  the  social 
and  the  intellectual  processes.  Spiritual  developments 
are,  all  of  them,  under  law,  administered  by  law,  as 
much  as  any  other  part  of  nature,  and  to  be  studied, 
therefore,  as  we  study  every  other  department  of  human 
life.  And  in  regard  to  the  moral  elements,  all  the 
graces  of  the  Spirit  and  all  the  fruits  of  the  Spirit  be- 


REVIVALS  SUBJECT  TO  LAW. 


245 


long  to  education.  They  are  to  be  developed  by  educa- 
tion, just  as  much  as  every  other  part  of  the  mind.  The 
belief  in  the  immediate  presence  and  efl&cacy  of  the 
Divine  Spirit  is  not  inconsistent  with  the  belief  that 
its  immediateness  and  efficacy  are  exercised  through 
definite  laws,  with  a  constancy  that  makes  those  laws 
comprehensible.  It  is  in  the  possibility  of  this  definite 
knowledge  that  the  foundation  is  laid  for  a  wise  pro- 
cedure on  the  part  of  the  minister  and  the  members  of 
the  congregation. 

Once,  this  would  have  been  a  very  audacious  avowal, 
- —  I  do  not  know  but  it  is  yet.  That  is  to  say,  it  may 
be  considered  audacious  to  preach  that  men,  when  they 
need  humihty,  meekness,  rapture,  ecstasy,  should  be  put 
upon  seeking  these  things  precisely  on  the  same  general 
methods  as  when  they  want  the  knowledge  of  criticism, 
the  knowledge  of  history,  or  intellectual  development 
in  any  direction.  Suppose,  when  a  father  brought  his 
boy  to  the  Sheffield  school,  in  order  that  he  might  be 
trained  in  engineering,  the  child  should  say,  "  I  find  it 
exceedingly  difficult  to  get  algebra  and  geometry  into 
my  head";  and  his  father  should  reply,  "My  son,  you 
do  not  spend  enough  time  in  your  closet ;  you  ought  to 
pray  more  :  that  would  open  your  mind  to  geometry  !  " 
I  should  not  blame  a  father  for  saying  to  his  son, 
"  Pray  for  God's  help  in  studying  geometry."  But,  sup- 
pose the  father  meant  to  imply  that  that  was  the  way 
to  learn  algebra ;  that  algebra  would  come  as  the  fruit 
of  prayer ;  and  that  if  you  only  humbled  yourself  and 
prayed  enough,  and  were  in  an  open  and  receiving 
mood,  by  and  by  would  come  in  algebra  !  Yet  that  is 
about  the  way  in  which  many  people  pray  for  spiritual 


246 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHmG. 


states.  They  think  that  if  they  withhold  themselves 
from  known  sins,  if  they  put  themselves  in  a  waiting- 
position,  if  they  open  their  minds  freely,  and  then  pray 
for  meekness  and  humility,  they  will  receive  those  con- 
ditions. Some  seem  to  think  that  such  things  are  kept 
already  prepared,  and  that  when  one  is  in  the  right 
state,  or  has  the  right  temperament,  or  the  right  consti- 
tution, and  has  prayed  enough,  some  humility  is  taken 
and  given  to  him ;  that  it  comes  down  to  him  in  some 
way  unsearchable  and  unknowable. 

I  should  be  very  unwilling  to  be  understood  as  set- 
ting aside,  a  whit,  the  faith  of  the  church  in  the  exist- 
ence of  the  Divine  Spirit,  in  its  universality,  in  its 
speciality  and  personality,  —  I  mean  in  the  sense  of 
acting  upon  individual  persons.  I  believe  it  all,  heart- 
ily. I  believe  it  a  good  deal  more  than  I  should  if 
I  were  shut  up  to  the  old  theory.  I  regard  laws  as 
so  many  limbs  in  which,  in  this  opaque  and  material 
world,  and  in  that  other  unexplored  world  within  us,  I 
may  trace  the  form  of  God.  I  think  we  never  come  so 
near  to  God  as  when  we  are  in  the  immediate  recogni- 
tion of  the  relations  of  cause  and  effect,  in  regard  to 
the  operations  of  the  outward  world,  or  of  the  inward 
world.  And  by  believing  that  all  moral  results  are 
conformable  to  the  established  constitution  of  things, 
we  do  not  obliterate  faith  in  the  Divine  Spirit,  but 
only  mark  out  the  ways  through  which  experience  and 
observation  teach  us  the  Divine  Spirit  acts.  Its  action 
is  universal.  It  is  not,  I  think,  this  secret,  subtle  sub- 
stance by  w^hich  men  themselves  are  vital,  by  which 
they  come  above  the  line  and  level  of  physical  and 
material  organizations  into  that  state  which  has  never 


REVIVALS  SUBJECT  TO  LAW. 


247 


yet  been  explored,  whose  metes  and  bounds  no  sur- 
^  veyor  can  ever  measure  by  chain  or  rule,  whose  quality 
no  alembic  and  no  analysis  can  ever  discover,  —  that 
yet  unknown  thing  called  mind.  I  believe  that  when 
we  come  into  that  state  in  which  this  begins  to  efflor- 
esce, we  enter  the  region  where  the  Divine  Spirit, 
universal,  stimulating  as  the  sun  is  throughout  the 
hemispheres,  exerts  its  power  ;  that  the  soul  is  waked 
into  life  by  the  Divine  Light,  and  that  our  higher  rap- 
tures, rulable  according  to  law,  according  to  definite 
exposition  of  law,  are  yet  vitalized  and  sublimated  by 
the  direct  impact  of  the  Divine  mind.  If  there  is  such 
a  thing  conceivable  as  one  mind  being  brooded  by  an- 
other, one  mind  resting  upon  another,  such  I  believe  to 
be,  at  least  in  figure,  the  method  in  which  the  human 
mind  is  awakened  and  stimulated  by  the  Divine  mind. 
What  I  plead  for  is,  that  the  gifts  of  the  Divine  Spirit 
are  not  exceptional,  or  capricious,  without  rule,  with- 
out definite  purpose  ;  but  that  they  are  to  be  just  as 
definitely  expected  as  the  results  which  the  farmer 
seeks  when  he  sows  his  seed.  Although  God  is  the 
God  of  nature,  and  although  all  the  processes  of  nature 
are  under  Divine  sovereignty  and  power,  yet,  in  that 
realm  there  is  a  definiteness  of  expectation  which  is 
justified  by  experience.  All  men  think  that  when  you 
educate  a  person  physically,  you  are  to  do  so,  not  without 
a  belief  that  God  helps  all  things  and  is  everywhere,  and 
everywhere  operative,  but  yet  wdth  a  definite  purpose 
to  make  them  stand,  walk,  throw  their  bodies  into  pos- 
tures of  grace,  and  so  discipline  themselves  to  strength. 
We  teach  the  hand  all  manner  of  manipulation  and 
skill,  and  feel  that  there  is  no  irreverence  in  saying 


248 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


we  do  this  by  natural  law.     So  we  teach  children  a 
thousand  intermediate  disciplines  of  affection,  of  love,  ^ 
i  of  taste,  of  obligingness,  of  self-denial,  —  a  thousand 

things  that  they  must  or  must  not  do,  in  order  to  perfect 
themselves.  In  other  words,  we  perfect  the  lower  part 
of  men's  natures  by  education.  That  we  do  this  with 
the  intellect,  every  one  knows.  Eeading  and  writing 
may  "  come  by  nature,"  but  we  always  supplement 
them  by  teaching,  and  act  in  the  schools  as  though  the 
intellect  had  certain  laws,  as  though  there  were  appro- 
priate methods  of  cultivating  it. 

REVIVALS  UNDER  THE  LAW  OF  CAUSE  AND  EFFECT. 

But  now,  when  we  come  to  religion,  men  fly  the  track. 
They  seem  to  think,  "  Here  is  vagueness  ;  here  is  a 
realm  too  sacred  to  suppose  that  law  operates  in  it," 
and  it  is  just  there  that  I  say,  in  respect  emphatically 
to  revivals  of  religion,  that  they  are  conformable  to  law, 
and  that  that  conformableness  to  law  is  in  the  founda- 
tion of  education  and  knowledge,  in  the  production 
of  emotion,  or  in  the  production  and  conduct  of  all 
spiritual  processes.  You  will  see,  therefore,  that  the 
ridicule  which  men  heap  upon  the  efforts  made  for  the 
promotion  of  revivals  is  altogether  without  just  foun- 
dation. They  say,  "Mr.  Jackson  has  gone  down  to 
Mill  Hollow  to  get  up  a  revival,  I  understand " ;  and 
everybody  laughs,  and  feels  that  that  man  is  put  down. 
But  suppose  I  were  to  say,  "  Mr.  Jackson  has  gone  down 
to  Mill  Hollow  to  hold  a  temperance-meeting,  and  to 
try  to  get  up  a  public  sentiment  on  that  subject." 

Very  good ;  they  need  it  down  there,  and  I  hope  he 
will  succeed."    Suppose  I  were  to  say,    Down  in  Mill 


REVIVALS  SUBJECT  TO  LAW. 


249 


Hollow,  I  understand,  there  are  a  hundred  children 
who  have  not  been  to  school,  on  an  average,  one 
month  in  three  years ;  and  Parson  Jackson  has  gone 
down  to  stir  the  people  up  on  the  subject  of  education, 
and  try  to  get  up  a  public  spirit  on  the  subject."  No- 
body would  laugh  at  that.  But  if  I  say,  Parson 
Jackson  has  gone  down  to  Mill  Hollow  to  try  to  get  up 
a  religious  feeling,  a  revival,"  then  everybody  laughs 
and  scoffs.  This  could  not  be  but  for  that  background 
of  impression,  that  a  revival  of  religion  is  a  thing  so 
absolutely  above  human  knowledge,  and  depends  upon 
such  capricious  conditions  in  the  Divine  Spirit,  that 
human  effort  in  that  direction  is  absolutely  ridiculous. 

If  I  should  say,  Parson  Jackson  has  gone  over  to 
the  White  Mountains  to  try  to  get  up  a  tornado,"  they 
would  laugh  ;  or,  if  I  should  say,  Parson  Jackson  has 
taken  a  lever  and  gone  ea^t  to  try  to  pry  the  sun  up  in 
the  morning,"  they  would,  laugh:  because  these  things 
are  known  to  be  outside  of  human  power.  But  to  say 
that  a  man  is  going  to  stir  up  the  community  in  behalf 
of  railroads,  causes  no  one  to  laugh.  To  get  up  a  refor- 
mation in  the  matter  of  gambling  or  drinking,  is  looked 
upon  as  normal  and  right ;  but  to  stir  men  up  in  behalf 
of  the  whole  extent  of  their  moral  character  and  life, 
—  is  not  that  normal  also  ?  Is  there  anything  ridiculous 
in  that  ? 

WHAT  IS  NATURE  ? 

It  is  such  statements,  however,  that  many  feel  to 
be  an  upheaval  of  the  foundations,  and  a  departure 
from  the  faith  of  the  fathers.    Por  example,  some 
will  ask  you,  "  Does  not  such  a  view  as  this  confound 
11* 


250 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


nature  and  grace  ?  Is  it  not  bringing  all  gracious 
operations  down  to  the  level  of  nature  ? "  What  is 
nature,  then  ?  Is  it  a  flat  plane  of  matter  ?  —  some- 
thing that  lies  at  the  very  bottom  of  God's  creation,  and 
is  on  the  whole  very  unworthily  there  ?  Many  people 
talk  as  if  nature  were  the  lowest  and  the  last  of  things. 
And  therefore  they  speak  about  reducing  a  thing  to 
the  level  of  nature.  What  is  nature  ?  Everything  that 
God  ever  organized  into  being  and  maintained,  is 
nature.  The  rock,  the  soil,  the  herb,  the  insect,  the 
animal,  man,  in  body  and  in  soul ;  all  the  way  from 
the  lowest  inorganic  rock  up  to  the  most  inspired 
genius  in  humanity,  all  that  long  line  upward,  is  through 
the  realm  of  nature.  Nature  does  not  wait,  either, 
on  this  side  of  death  ;  for  when  we  shall  break  through, 
—  not  by  far  traveling,  but  by  dropping  opacity  and 
the  cumbering  flesh,  —  and  stand  in  the  spiritual  light 
with  spirits  that  are  now  perhaps  nearer  to  us  than  a 
hand's-breadth,  —  when  we  shall  come  into  the  other 
life,  still  it  will  be  nature,  as  I  believe.  For  nature  is 
all  heaven,  and  all  earth,  and  all  the  universe  of  God. 
Wherever,  along  the  lines  of  space,  the  word  of  God  has 
thrilled  and  something  has  happened,  there  is  nature ; 
and  nothing  is  or  can  be  that  does  not  circle  into  that. 
To  reduce  things  to  the  level  of  nature,  is  to  reduce 
them  to  the  level  of  God,  which  ought  not  to  be  a  very 
great  degradation. 

PHYSICAL  NATURE  NOT  IGNOBLE. 

But  there  are  two  things  to  be  thought  of,  even  in 
respect  to  that  use  of  the  term  which  men  have  been 
accustomed  to  make.    I  have  not  such  an  ignoble 


REVIVALS  SUBJECT  TO  LAW. 


251 


sense  of  nature,  —  meaning  by  tliat  simply  the  econ- 
omy of  the  physical  world  round  about  me,  —  as  to 
believe  that  a  spiritual  intuition  or  emotion  is  de- 
graded by  being  spoken  of  in  the  same  connection. 
There  are  a  great  many  men,  acting  under  the  old  theo- 
logical heresy  of  the  intrinsic  sinfulness  of  matter,  who 
curse  material  nature,  as  though  God  had  had  nothing 
to  do  in  the  making  and  sustaining  of  it.  I  do  not  con- 
sider that  unthinking  matter  is  to  be  ranked  or  classed 
with  sentient  matter,  but  this  I  think  :  The  heavens  de- 
clare the  glory  of  God,  and  the  earth  shows  his  handi- 
work. Oh,  there  is  not  a  place  in  the  old  Litchfield 
house  where  I  was  born  that  is  not  dear  to  my  eye  !  I 
go  back  there  sometimes ;  and  the  last  time  I  went  I 
chose  not  to  go  in  the  glare  of  day,  they  had  so  changed 
the  place.  But  I  stood  at  twilight,  when  just  enough 
darkness  had  come  down  to  hide  the  changes,  and 
yet  there  was  light  enough  to  throw  up  above  the 
horizon  and  against  the  sky  the  sul)stance  and  form  of 
the  old  house.  It  was  full,  to  my  thought,  of  my  father 
and  my  mother,  of  my  sisters  and  brothers.  My  heart 
blessed  the  old  house  for  all  that  it  had  had  in  it ;  for 
all  the  care  that  it  had  had,  for  all  its  sweet  associa- 
tions. It  was  stained  through  with  soul  color.  It  was 
full,  as  it  were,  with  the  blood  of  life. 

The  mother  w^ho,  by  reason  of  increasing  wealth,  is 
selling  off  the  old  furniture  as  she  moves  out  of  her 
cottage  into  her  mansion,  sells  everything  cheerfully  till 
she  comes  to  the  cradle.  No,  my  dear,  no  ;  you  never 
shall  sell  that."  What  is  it  ?  It  is  an  old,  rude,  heavy, 
clumsy  thing,  which  rolls,  when  you  rock  it,  like  a  farm- 
er's wagon  going  over  bridges,  and  makes  all  sorts  of 


252 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


noises.  But  there  is  no  money  that  can  buy  that. 
There  her  seven  children  have  lain ;  there  she  has  had 
songs  and  prayers ;  there  have  been  tears  and  heart  ex- 
periences unutterable,  —  and  they  have  sanctified  the 
cradle.  The  globe  on  which  the  foot  of  Christ  has 
trod  cannot  be  ignoble  to  me.  The  heavens  and  the 
earth  are  full  of  God  to  me.  There  is  not  a  bird  that 
sings,  there  is  not  a  flower  that  blossoms,  there  is  not  a 
lichen  that  colors  the  rock,  there  is  not  a  thing  that 
happens  in  the  world,  that  I  do  not  say  to  myself, 
"  That  is  God's  thought  and  matter."  The  world  is 
embossed  and  embroidered  and  filled  full ;  it  records 
the  tastes,  the  habitudes,  the  thoughts,  the  feelings,  of 
my  God.  Matter  by  association  becomes  sacred  to  me. 
If  you  hear  men  talk  about  degrading  things  to  nature 
and  to  matter,  say  to  them :  The  right  way  is  to  level 
up,  not  to  level  down.  Carry  the  idea  of  nature  and 
of  matter  up  so  high  that  it  will  not  be  a  degrading 
association. 

When  men  say,  therefore,  that  to  declare  the  w-ork 
of  God  in  revivals  of  religion  is  entirely  compatible 
with  the  system  of  moral  laws,  and  the  results  which 
are  the  works  of  the  Divine  Spirit  actually  producible 
by  taking  advantage  of  these  laws,  —  when  men  say 
that  this  is  to  reduce  grace  to  the  level  of  natural  law, 
I  think  they  talk  either  on  a  false  system,  or  without 
knowing  what  they  are  saying.  For  it  is  no  degrada- 
tion, any  more  than  it  is  a  degradation  for  me  to  say 
that  men  learn  refinement,  intellectual  culture,  taste, 
beauty,  or  any  other  thing,  by  the  application  of  suit- 
able laws.  It  is  undertaking  to  find  out  what  God  did, 
and  thought,  and  meant,  and  to  follow  that. 


REVIVALS  SUBJECT  TO  LAW. 


253 


Then  it  is  said,  "  Does  it  not  dishonor  God  ?  Does 
it  not  take  from  him  his  prerogatives  ?  Is  it  not  a 
vain  assumption  on  the  part  of  man,  that  he  can  do 
what  it  is  the  province  of  the  Divine  Spirit  to  do  ? 
Can  man  convert  himself  ?  Is  not  conversion  the  work 
of  God  directly  ?  "  Admit  that  it  is  —  which  I  do  not 
admit  —  the  sole  work  of  the  Divine  Spirit ;  this  would 
not  interfere  with  the  ground  of  moral  education,  and 
would  not  touch  the  ground  on  which  I  place  revivals 
of  religion.  Although  some  specific  parts  of  any  gen- 
eral system  may  be  more  immediately  personal  and  ab- 
solutely divine  in  their  causation,  it  does  not  affect  the 
fact  that  the  system  itself  may  be  a  ,mixture  of  divine 
and  human  volition.  But  it  seems  to  me  that  every 
element  that  goes  to  the  constitution  of  a  revival,  and 
every  element,  too,  that  goes  to  right  teaching,  and 
right  training,  and  the  production  of  all  kinds  of  Chris- 
tian feeling  in  a  church,  —  every  one  of  these  will  one 
day  be  solvable  ;  they  will  come  within  the  circuit  of 
human  knowledge  ;  and  we  shall  profit  just  as  much 
by  this  knowledge  as  we  have  profited  by  knowledge  in 
the  w^hole  economy  of  society.  Do  not  men  live  bet- 
ter, are  they  not  wiser  and  better,  for  having  studied 
out  those  phenomena  which  by  the  old  Hebrews  were 
supposed  to  be  the  immediate  results  of  Divine  power  ? 
God  spoke  to  the  Hebrews,  when  it  thundered.  We  do 
not  any  more  suppose  that  thunder  is  the  voice  of  God. 
God  made  grass  to  grow,  as  it  were,  by  touching  it  with 
his  finger.  We  know  that  grass  grows  through  the  im- 
pulse of  the  Divine  Spirit,  but  it  is  the  Divine  Spirit 
sent  through  various  channels.  Are  we  worse  off  for 
the  knowledge  that  the  Divine  agency  is  both  imme- 


254 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


diate  and  remote  ?  So  it  is  said  that  God,  in  old 
times,  put  it  into  the  hearts  of  men  to  do  a  thousand 
things  with  irresistible  impulse,  using  them  as  ma- 
chines, starting  them  as  an  engineer  starts  his  cylinder, 
setting  it  going  and  pumping  right  and  left.  That  used 
to  be  substantially  the  idea  of  the  way  in  which  the 
Spirit  acted  upon  the  minds  of  men. 

THE  SCIENCE  OF  RELIGION. 

Now,  more  and  more  is  the  study  of  art  and  science 
making  man  powerful,  facilitating  his  efforts,  raising 
the  tone  of  society,  stimulating  general  civilization. 
So,  I  believe,  one  day,  piety  itself  will  be  carried  to  a 
higher  level ;  it  will  be  purified,  it  will  be  systematized, 
it  will  be  better  studied,  more  easily  understood,  less 
fitful,  less  disposed  to  moods.  The  Spirit  of  God  is 
bringing  his  church  into  that  higher  state  in  which 
religion  also  becomes  a  part  of  science.  That  is  to  say, 
the  way  of  God  in  religion  will  be  made  known  to  us 
just  as  God  is  made  known  to  us  in  physical  and  in- 
tellectual affairs.  In  that  day,  I  believe  we  shall  have 
a  higher  state  of  piety,  for  I  do  not  believe  that  the 
church  of  God  has  more  than  come  to  its  blossom,  if  to 
that.  I  do  not  believe  that  it  is  going  to  die  under  the 
rocks.  I  think  that  it  is  going  to  be  purged  out  by  the 
life  of  science.  I  believe  that  many  of  the  systems 
now  held  will  change  the  forms  and  the  economies 
of  civilization ;  but  the  great  substance  of  religious 
life  is  so  true,  it  is  so  ineffably  and  transcendently 
superior  to  every  other,  that,  in  the  last  unfolding  of 
the  Divine  Providence,  it  will  be  as  conspicuously  su- 
perior to  wliat  it  now  is  as  every  other  part  of  the 


BEVIVALS  SUBJECT  TO  LAW. 


255 


human  economy  is  superior  to  what  it  was  in  times 
gone  by. 

DEPENDENCE  ON  GOD  NOT  GIVEN  UP. 

But  this  teaching  that  all  moral  and  spiritual  results 
are  subject  to  the  investigation  and  control  of  men,  — 
does  it  not  weaken  our  sense  of  dependence  upon  God  ? 
It  may,  but  it  ought  not  to.  What  is  our  sense  of  de- 
pendence upon  God  ?  I  depend  on  God  for  the  con- 
tinuation of  my  reason ;  but  while  that  is  preser\^ed 
fresh  and  strong,  I  feel  bound  to  depend  on  myself.  I 
do  not  feel  at  liberty  to  depend  on  Gpd,  and  then  sit  up 
all  night ;  to  depend  on  God  for  the  bright  exercise  of 
reason,  and  then  use  myself  up  by  twenty  hours  of  con- 
tinuous study,  when  I  have  immediately  before  me  a 
great  effort  to  make  in  a  public  assembly.  If  I  have  to 
preach  on  Sunday,  I  pray  God  to  help  me.  Help  me 
do  w^hat?  Help  me  not  to  be  foolish  on  Saturday; 
help  me  not  to  use  myself  all  up  in  talking  and  laugh- 
ing, not  to  eat  anything  improper ;  help  me  to  be  in 
a  perfect  state  of  bodily  health :  help  me  to  have  elas- 
ticity of  spirit ;  help  me  to  have  such  entire  control  of 
myself  as  that  my  life  shall  beat  in  the  higher  part  of 
my  mind,  so  that  all  my  moral  nature  shall  be  lumi- 
nous, full,  impetuous,  and  wanting  to  corruscate.  So  I 
ask  God  to  help  me.  Not  directly  to  help  me  reason, 
but  to  help  me  that  I  may  use  reason  according  to  its 
laws,  that  I  may  understand  what  he  gave  to  me  and 
how  to  employ  it.  No  man  depends  on  God  so  much 
as  he  who  believes  that  laws  are  the  indexes  of  the 
Divine  will ;  and  he  truly  depends  on  God  who,  seeing 
natural  laws,  obeys  them.    There  is  no  other  explain- 


256 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


able  dependence  but  that.  And  certainly  the  rational 
explanation  of  revivals  does  not  decrease  that  depend- 
ence, but  rather  increases  it. 

But  does  it  not  inspire  in  men  a  vain  sense  of  con- 
fidence ?  "  Is  a  farmer  inspired  with  vain  self-confi- 
dence, because  he  can  build  a  wall  ?  Because  a  man 
can  plow  his  ground  and  get  forty  bushels  of  wheat  to 
the  acre,  does  that  inspire  in  him  vain  self-confidence  ? 
Is  not  success  in  following  revealed  laws  the  way  to  en- 
courage men  to  normal  action  and  feeling  ?  If  I  find 
out  how  the  graces  of  the  Spirit  are  produced  by  the 
constitution  of  my  nature  and  the  constitution  of  God 
in  my  nature,  if  I  find  out  the  truest  and  the  best  way 
by  which  to  develop  them,  does  that  inspire,  or  tend  to 
inspire,  me  with  vain  self-confidence  ?  The  augmenta- 
tion of  the  sense  of  power  in  right  channels  and  right 
directions  is  wholesome,  it  is  good. 

Without,  therefore,  arguing  any  further  on  this  sub- 
ject, which  is  preliminary,  I  say  that  we  may  approach 
the  topic  of  the  production  of  revivals  of  religion  with 
perfect  boldness,  without  any  sense  of  irreverence,  and 
without  feeling  that  we  are  in  any  way  transgressing 
either  the  revealed  word  or  the  truth  as  manifested 
through  God's  providence. 

WHAT  IS  A  REVIVAL  ? 

What  is  a  revival  of  religion  ?  Describing  it  from 
the  outside,  it  is  a  deep  interest  in  personal  religion,  in 
a  church  or  in  a  neighborhood.  Or,  to  give  a  very  gen- 
eral definition,  it  is  the  existence,  in  a  large  number  of 
persons  at  the  same  time,  of  strong  moral  feeling.  It  is 
the  excitement  of  a  great  many  persons  together,  their 


REVIVALS  SUBJECT  TO  LAW. 


257 


excitement  having  social  relations.  It  is  the  excite- 
V  ment  of  many  people  together  on  one  subject,  and  tliat 
one  subject  their  moral  state,  their  religious  condition. 
It  is  the  excitement  of  a  great  many  persons  together 
on  the  subject  of  religion,  each  one  with  reference  to 
his  own  personal  feeling.  It  is  not  with  reference  to 
the  public  well-being,  but  to  each  man's  own  personal 
well-being.  These,  I  believe,  comprehend  the  phe- 
nomena of  revivals  of  religion.  They  will  vary  accord- 
ing to  circumstances.  That  is  to  say,  sometimes  the 
impression  will  come  silently,  like  the  dew  through 
the  night,  and  all  you  know  in  the  morning  is  that 
it  is  there.  At  other  times,  it  comes  with  a  rush,  as 
a  summer  storm  comes  after  long  drought.  At  other 
times,  this  great,  pervasive  feeling  in  the  church  or 
the  community  is  the  result  of  deliberate  planning  or 
action.  In  other  words,  it  has  all  the  varieties  that 
belong  to  nature.  It  adapts  itself  to  the  conditions 
of  men,  the  nature  of  the  community,  and  the  moods  in 
which  that  comnmnity  exists.  The  phenomena  are  in- 
finitely various. 

THE  AWAKENING  OF  CONSCIENCE. 

In  the  first  place,  revivals  sometimes  take  on  the 
form,  simply,  of  increased  attention.  I  have  heard  my 
father  say  that  his  first  effort  at  all  revivals  was  to  pro- 
duce attention,  thoughtfulness.  But  as  this  is  merely 
the  swelling  of  the  seed,  the  first  germ  in  the  develop- 
ment of  a  true  revival  feeling  is  an  unusual  sensibility 
of  conscience,  or  of  moral  sense.  More  usually,  a 
revival  begins  with  a  feeling  arising  from  the  applica- 
tion of  an  ideal  rule  to  life.    It  is  accompanied  wdth 

Q 


258 


LECTURES  ON  PHEACHING. 


a  sense  of  low  living.  Men  have  generally  this  feeling 
in  a  community :  "  We  are  not  living  right ;  we  are 
not  fit  to  die.  Something  needs  to  be  done  before  we 
are  prepared  to  meet  our  God."  Now,  all  these  impres- 
sions are  a  kind  of  obscure  utterance  of  ct)nscience. 
The  real  thing  that  is  taking  place  is  that  the  con- 
science of  the  community  is  waking  up,  and  is  begin- 
ning to  apply  to  thought  and  feeling  new  measures,  or, 
if  not  new  measures  in  conception,  yet  new  measures 
in  practice.  Old  knowledges  become  vivid,  and  there 
is,  throughout  the  community,  an  actual  personal  sense 
of  unworthiness,  guilt,  sinfulness,  whatever  term  you 
choose  to  employ ;  and  that  is  the  first  marked 
symptom.  It  may  be  tender,  gentle,  sweet  as  a  song, 
or  it  may  be  impetuous  and  harsh,  rending  as  a  storm. 
That  will  depend  upon  the  conditions  in  which  the 
community  is  and  has  been,  the  nature  of  the  instruc- 
tion the  people  have  had,  the  obliquities  through  which 
they  have  gone,  the  degradation  or  the  elevation  which 
has  previously  taken  place  in  them. 

THE  SENSE  OF  DANGER. 

Then,  there  is  the  sense  of  danger,  too.  Under  some 
administrations  that  sense  of  danger  will  predominate, 
and  all  that  goes  on  in  the  church  and  community  will 
go  on  under  the  stimulus  of  fear.  But  if  this  renewed 
excitement  of  conscience,  or  this  activity  of  the  moral 
sense,  could  be  made  to  act  under  the  consciousness  of 
the  essential  hatefulness  of  wrong,  and  thus  create  a 
revolt  from  moral  inferiority,  a  sense  of  something 
nobler  than  fear,  —  a  sense  of  obligation  to  God,  of  the 
shame  and  dishonor  of  receiving  everything  from  the 


REVIVALS  SUBJECT  TO  LAW. 


259 


hand  of  the  benefactor  and  returning  nothing  but  self- 
ish and  quarrelsome  ingratitude,  —  that  would  be  a  far 
more  wholesome  feeling.  But  it  runs  through  tlie  en- 
tire scale  of  motive,  from  this  more  noble  sense  of  the 
unbecomingness,  the  unworthiness,  the  ingratitude,  and 
the  dishonor  of  sin,  clear  down  to  the  lowest  tone  in 
the  base, —  the  fear  of  the  consequences  of  sin,  a  deeper 
sense  of  moral  responsibility,  an  increased  apprehen- 
siveness  of  danger. 

THE  STRUGGLE. 

Then  comes  the  struggle.  The  struggle  that  takes 
place  in  revivals  of  religion,  psychologically  stated,  is 
the  attempt  of  the  reason  and  of  the  moral  sentiments 
to  take  ascendency  of  the  passions  and  appetites.  It 
may  assume  a  doctrinal  form,  or  it  may  assume  a  prac- 
tical form.  That  is  to  say,  sometimes  the  struggle  is  of 
a  dissipated  man  to  break  away  from  his  dissipation ; 
sometimes,  of  an  ordinary,  respectable  business  man  to 
break  away  from  certain  improprieties  in  the  conduct 
of  his  business ;  and  sometimes,  in  highly  intellectual, 
theologically  indoctrinated  natures,  it  may  be  the 
struggle  as  to  whether  a  man  will  submit  his  will  to  tlie 
supremacy  of  the  will  of  God.  But  these  are  only 
forms.  The  real  thing  that  takes  place  is  a  nascent 
effort  of  the  superior  faculties  in  man  to  dominate  the 
inferior  and  come  to  sovereignty  in  the  soul.  It  in- 
volves a  clear  and  emphatic  view  of  God,  of  the  future 
of  our  existence.  I  have  ridden  many  and  many  a 
night  in  storms  and  darkness,  especially  in  the  West, 
where  my  early  life  was  largely  missionary,  when  it 
was  so  dark  I  could  not  see  the  horse's  ears  before 


260 


LECTURES  ON  PKEACHING. 


me,  and  sometimes  when  storms  were  coming  on  or 
were  actually  raging.  I  think  there  are  no  phenom- 
ena, not  even  burning  prairies,  or,  still  more  terrible, 
burning  forests  in  the  night,  through  which  I  have 
ridden  when  the  swelling  streams  threatened  to  carry 
me  away,  —  nothing  so  impressive  to  me  as  those  sud- 
den flashes  of  light  that  revealed  to  me,  as  I  rode  over 
some  elevation,  the  whole  outlying  country,  so  that  I 
could  see  hill  and  valley,  distant  hut,  log-cabin,  the 
outlines  of  the  trees,  the  wdiole  shape  of  the  clouds  in 
the  heavens.  The  whole  was  instantaneous,  and  but 
for  a  second,  and  then  darkness  shut  down  again.  Now, 
where  men  are  riding,  as  it  were,  in  the  profound  dark- 
ness of  an  unconverted  and  sinful  life,  and  these  moral 
illuminations  come  and  throw  the  light  instantaneously, 
so  that  the  eternal  w^orld  is  brought  near  to  their  con- 
sciousness, —  immortality,  all  that  is  meant  in  God  and 
heaven,  so  far  as  they  can  comprehend  them,  all  that  is 
meant  in  life  here,  all  that  is  right  and  wrong,  —  when 
all  this  is  brought,  as  in  a  moment,  in  a  vision,  before  a 
man's  mind,  it  is  one  of  the  grandest  experiences  that 
ever  comes  to  the  human  soul.  You  may  laugh  at  men 
under  conviction,  but  the  evolutions  that  are  taking 
place  in  the  souls  of  men,  w^hen  God's  Spirit  is  work- 
ing upon  them  in  revivals  of  religion,  have  in  them 
more  grandeur  than  the  evolutions  at  Waterloo,  or  in 
any  battle  that  was  ever  fought  upon  earth. 

THE  VICTORY. 

Then  there  is  a  transition  from  this  state  of  struggle 
to  one  of  victory,  purpose,  consecration;  one  in  which, 
by  the  Spirit  of  God  working  co-ordinately  with  human 


REVIVALS  SUBJECT  TO  LAW. 


261 


reason  and  with  the  human  will,  a  man  determines  his 
character  and  his  after-life,  passes  from  the  lower  plane 
of  selfishness  and  pride  into  the  plane  of  love  to 
God  and  love  to  men,  with  a  purpose  permanent,  irre- 
fragable, supreme.  These,  briefly  stated,  are  the  points 
of  the  phenomena  that  take  place  in  a  revival  of  re- 
ligion. Thoughtfulness,  leading  to  an  excited  moral 
sense;  a  new  measure  of  life  and  duty;  a  struggle 
and  a  victory,  in  which,  when  the  constituent*  ele- 
ments are  examined,  it  will  be  found  that  a  perfect 
revolution  has  taken  place  in  the  interior  economy. 
The  man  that  before  lived  for  himself,  now  lives  for 
God  and  for  his  fellow-man.  He  who  lived  only  for 
time  is  now  living  for  eternity  as  well.  These  are  the 
things  that  take  ,  place. 

HOW  TO  PRODUCE  THESE  RESULTS. 

Now  the  question  arises.  How  shall  we  attempt  to 
produce  these  ?  You  have  said  that  they  are  pro- 
ducible, how  shall  they  be  produced  ?  I  may  mention 
briefly,  as  the  result  of  my  own  observation,  that  there 
are  favoring  circumstances  in  Providence  which  deter- 
mine times  and  seasons  in  this  matter.  All  seasons  are 
not  alike  favorable.  All  methods,  we  know,  are  not  alike 
wise,  neither  are  all  seasons  propitious,  for  the  procur- 
ing of  these  results.  For  example  :  it  would  be  unwise 
to  attempt  to  excite  in  a  community  or  in  a  church  a  very 
wide-spread,  deep,  and  general  moral  excitement  while 
the  whole  community  is  burning  and  blazing  with  po- 
litical excitement ;  because  you  cannot  have  two  such 
excitements  at  the  same  time,  and  the  religious  feeling 
in  any  community  is  generally  so  feeble  that  it  is  not 


262 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


strong  enough  to  resist  this  greater  excitement.  There 
are  single  instances  in  which  revivals  of  religion,  well 
inaugurated,  have  survived  political  excitements  ;  but  in 
those  cases  they  have  been  strong  before  the  other  ex- 
citements began,  and  they  have  been  shielded  and  sep- 
arated. Two  rivers  of  equal  force  may  come  together 
and  flow  on  together,  but  rills  entering  a  river  are  lost 
in  it.  These  major  excitements  overmaster  the  minor 
ones ;  and  the  moral  excitement  in  this  world  is  usually 
the  minor  one,  because  of  the  feebleness  of  this  element 
in  men.  You  must  lie  upon  your  oars  and  wait  for 
day,  watching  times  and  seasons.  Then  there  is  a  great 
deal  of  difference  in  the  time  of  the  year,  whether 
people  can  get  out  to  meetings  or  can  spare  the  time. 
Among  hundreds  of  revivals  I  have  known  only  one 
that  occurred  in  the  midst  of  harvest ;  because  men 
cannot  spare  the  time  from  the  harvest-field.  You  want 
time  and  leisure,  and  therefore  you  want  those  intervals 
of  the  year  when  men's  occupations  favor.  Business 
has  much  to  do  with  times  and  seasons.  For  instance, 
sometimes  men  are  hot  with  speculation,  and  the  whole 
air  is  full  of  it.  That  is  not  a  favorable  time  for  any 
processes  leading  toward  this  production  of  common 
moral  feeling.  But,  on  the  other  hand,  the  reaction 
comes.  Once  in  about  ten  years  you  may  make  up  your 
minds  that  things  will  go  down ;  and  immediately  fol- 
lowing the  universal  bankruptcy,  or  the  feeling  that 
men  are  bankrupt,  is  a  good  time  to  strike  in.  I  do  not 
think  that  times  of  general  sickness  are  opportune,  —  a 
little  remarkable,  that.  But  where  wide-spread  sick- 
nesses afflict  the  community,  they  generally  harden  the 
heart.    It  is  almost  never  a  good  time  for  revivals  after 


REVIVALS  SUBJECT  TO  LAW. 


263 


the  prevalence  of  sickness,  but  business  overthrows 
make  the  best  of  all  preparations.  There  is  nothing 
that  seems  to  cut  the  roots  of  man's  dependence  on  this 
world  like  that.  There  is  no  other  state  in  which  men 
seem  so  to  want  something  to  hold  them  up,  no  other 
state  of  mind  in  which  men  are  so  drooping,  despondent, 
and  longing,  in  which  they  feel  so  much  the  vanity  of 
this  life,  and  the  need  of  something  better  than  anything 
in  this  life,  as  they  do  when  the  hand  of  God's  provi- 
dence has  crushed  their  idols,  —  their  money.  Those 
are  precious  times,  —  times  never  to  be  lost  sight  of. 

Then  there  may  be  specially  favorable  circumstances 
in  communities.  And,  although  general  sickness  may 
not  be  favorable  to  revivals,  sometimes  the  death  of  a 
single  person  will  be  blessed  to  the  whole  community. 
In  a  case  within  my  knowledge,  the  drowning  of  two 
young  ladies  was  the  means  of  producing  such  univer- 
sal tenderness  and  seriousness,  that  it  culminated  in  a 
general  revival  of  religion.  So  a  young  man,  the  pride 
of  the  village,  brought  home  from  college  to  be  buried, 
of  whom  his  townsmen  had  hoped  the  best  and  the 
noblest  things,  and  in  whose  death  they  were  stricken, 
will  produce  a  state  of  mind  which,  if  wisely  followed 
up,  will  lead  to  the  raising  up  of  a  score  of  other  young 
men  that  will  more  than  fill  his  place.  All  these  things 
are  to  be  watched  in  the  community,  and  your  efforts 
at  revivals  are  to  be  at  particulai*  seasons  of  the  year. 
As  you  sow  in  spring  and  reap  in  autumn,  as  you  adapt 
all  the  economies  of  industry  to  varying  seasons,  so  you 
are  to  adapt  your  moral  culture  of  men  to  those  pecu- 
liarities of  God's  providence,  which,  with  a  little  care 
and  observation,  every  one  may  discern. 


264 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


QUESTIONS   AND  ANSWERS. 

Q .  Do  you  say  that  revivals  are  sure  to  follow  when  means  ai'e 
gmployed  in  the  appropriate  way,  at  appropriate  seasons  ? 

Mr.  Beecher.  —  Jusi  as  sure  as  results  are  to  follow 
in  husbandry.  It  is  not  every  man  that  plows  well  and 
sows  well  who  gets  his  harvest;  but  still,  that  is  the 
average  course  of  things,  and  the  probability  is  such  as 
to  encourage  everybody.  It  is  not  every  ship  that  is 
well  built  that  is  lucky,  and  makes  good  voyages. 
There  is  n't  anything  that  is  absolutely  certain.  I  feel, 
though,  in  regard  to  revivals  of  religion  in  my  own 
church,  that  if  the  circumstances  of  the  community 
favor,  if  those  means  are  taken  by  which  men  are 
brought  together  and  kept  together  long  enough  to  pro- 
duce a  distinct  moral  impression  upon  them,  and  fol- 
low it  up  continuously,  the  result  is  just  as  certain 
as  any  other  result  in  the  operations  of  cause  and  effect 
in  life.  I  believe,  you  know,  that  religion  is  right 
living,  according  to  the  nature  that  God  has  given  us ; 
and  that  when  you  begin  to  open  up  to  men  their  na- 
ture and  show  them  what  is  the  great  law  of  rectitude, 
and  then  press  that  right  home  upon  them,  ordinarily 
those  who  have  been  raised  in  Christian  families  will 
go  right  forward.  I  honor  God  in  the  faith  that  the 
mind  will  act  according  to  those  laws  which  God  has 
given  to  it. 

Q.  Yesterday,  in  speakino;  of  different  denominations  as  having 
seasons  of  revival,  our  Episcopal  brethren  were  mentioned  as, 
in  some  sort,  an  exception.  Where  would  you  place  their  season 
i)f  Lent,  with  reference  to  its  bearing  upon  revivals  ? 

Mr.  Beecher.  —  I  thought  afterwards,  on  returning 


REVIVALS  SUBJECT  TO  LAW. 


265 


home,  that  revivals,  in  the  usual  sense  of  that  term, 
were  believed  in  by  Bishop  Mcllvaine,  and  by  his  suc- 
cessor in  Brooklyn,  Dr.  Cutler.  I  have  known  indi- 
vidual instances  of  that  kind,  but  my  impression  is 
that,  in  general,  our  brethren  in  the  Episcopal  Church 
prefer  to  rely,  not  upon  spontaneous  and  irregular  in- 
fluences, but  upon  steady  and  constant  action  of  train- 
ing institutions.  The  Lenten  services  may  possibly  be 
considered  as  an  approach  towards  a  revival  state. 

Rev.  Dr.  Bacon.  —  Is  n't  it  an  arrangement  to  have  a  revival 
of  religion  every  year,  at  a  certain  season  ? 

Mr.  Beecher.  —  Yes,  that  is  the  design.  It  is  to 
have  the  spring  of  the  year  come  in  with  a  very  strong 
impression  upon  the  minds  of  men  of  the  great  his- 
torical facts  of  Christianity,  with  their  appropriate  re- 
sults upon  the  heart. 

0  Q.  You  speak  of  some  seasons  as  being  more  favorable  than 
others  to  the  production  of  revivals.  After  all,  don't  you  think 
that  one  of  the  great  duties  of  ministers  and  of  churches  is  to 
watch  the  indications,  the  leadings  of  God's  providence  in  the 
spiritual  world,  as  by  analogy  we  do  in  the  physical  world  ? 

Mr.  Beecher.  —  Yes,  sir,  unquestionably.  Only,  I 
have  known  a  great  many  ministers  who  spent  the 
most  of  their  lives  in  waiting  for  God.  1  suppose  there 
is  scarcely  any  church  in  which  two  consecutive  years 
pass  without  possibilities  of  developing  more  or  less 
the  revival  spirit.  I  repeat  what  I  said  yesterday, 
and  what  I  shall  have  occasion  to  speak  of  more  fully, 
that  revivals  have  themselves  a  progressive  history 
in  any  church.  The  first  revival,  in  many  of  its  feat- 
ures, will  never  be  repeated.    The  next  one  will  be 

VOL.  n.  12 


266 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


an  advance  upon  that,  unless  the  interval  has  been 
so  long  that  the  first  has  been  forgotten.  But,  take  a 
period  of  twenty  years,  and  let  there  be  in  that  twenty 
years  eight  revivals  of  religion,  and  the  revivals  them- 
selves will  show  that  there  has  been  a  process  of  de- 
velopment. The  last  one  will  be  purer,  sweeter,  more 
efficacious,  less  physical,  with  less  of  the  awful,  if  I 
may  so  say,  than  the  first  one.  In  any  two  or  three 
years,  it  seems  to  me  that  a  man  whose  heart  is  warm, 
whose  zeal  is  strong,  will  find  openings  and  opportuni- 
ties for  either  partial  or  very  general  revivals.  In  al- 
most any  large  parish,  with  outlying  neighborhoods,  a 
revival  may  take  place  in  one  neighborhood,  but  not  in 
the  whole  parish,  —  sometimes  in  one  portion,  and 
sometimes  in  another.  And  these  little  affairs  are  to 
be  taken  care  of,  no  matter  if  there  are  only  five  or  six 
gathered  in ;  they  are  precious  fruits.  Never  refuse  to 
glean. 

Q.  My  question  would  relate  to  the  philosophy  of  revivals  : 
Where  is  the  real  initiative  ?  Is  it  in  the  human  agent,  or  is  it  in 
the  Divine  ? 

Mr.  Beecher.  —  Everything  that  1  have  is  divine 
when  I  am  acting  in  the  line  of  law.  I  believe  myself 
to  be  under  the  inspiration  of  God  at  all  times,  and  that 
that  is  covered  by  the  injunction,  "  Whether  ye  eat  or 
drink,  or  whatever  ye  do,  do  all  for  the  glory  of  God." 
If  I  sit  down  to-day  to  write  to  those  whom  I  love,  the 
very  act  of  writing  is  something  sweet  and  pleasant  to 
me.  Not  that  I  like  to  write,  for  I  do  not,  very  much ; 
but,  after  all,  it  is  the  perfume  that  comes  over  from  the 
other  side  that  makes  it  sweet.  Now,  if  one  has  the 
sense  of  God,  and  lives  wdth  God,  and  feels  that  God  is 


HEVrVALS  SUBJECT  TO  LAW. 


267 


his  father ;  if  he  has  the  sense  of  sonship,  and  carries 
within  himself  the  thought,  "  All  things  are  mine,  be- 
cause I  am  Christ's,"  —  then  there  is  no  part  of  his  life 
that  will  not  refer  to  God.  Under  those  circumstances, 
I  say,  that  when  I  see  there  is  a  little  opening,  and  I 
am  moved  to  go  right  into  it,  it  is  the  Divine  Spirit  that 
moves  me.  This  body  is  divine.  God  took  a  spark  of 
himself,  and  put  it  in  me,  and  called  it  Beecher.  There 
may  be  an  irreverent  way  to  take  that,  yet  there  is 
another,  —  the  affectionate  and  the  real  way. 

Q.  As  I  understand  it,  you  look  upon  a  revival  of  religion  as 
what  might  be  called  a  phenomenon,  and  not,  perhaps,  the  regular, 
normal  condition  of  a  church.  Would  you  consider  that  a  church 
ought  to  be,  or  can  possibly  be,  in  a  continued  revival  state  ? 

Mr.  Beecher.  —  Yes,  and  no.  That  is  to  say,  no,  if 
you  take  your  type  of  a  revival  from  that  condition  into 
which  churches  go  when  they  have  not  for  a  long  time 
had  one,  and  which  is  like  the  first  throwing  up  of  the 
soil,  with  the  disintegration  of  rocks,  full  of  violent  ef- 
fects, and  therefore  full  of  reactions  and  rebounds,  with 
much  allowance  to  be  made  all  the  way  through.  In 
that  highly  wrought  state,  a  church  could  not  possibly 
exist  all  the  time.  But  suppose  that  to  be  the  first  in 
order,  and  that  the  same  church,  after  about  two  years, 
has  another  revival ;  it  will  come  in  less  violently,  with 
less  retort,  with  less  intense  convictions.  And  your 
unthinking,  unwise,  good  old  men  will  pray  that  God 
would  give  them  another  such  shaking  as  they  had 
two  years  ago.  Well,  he  won't  give  them  another 
such  sha.king,  because  that  was  a  shaking  with  twenty- 
five  years  of  deadness  before  it ;  this  has  had  but  two 
years  of  comparatively  little  falling  off  to  precede  it. 


268 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


It  will  be  much  richer,  sounder,  safer,  deeper,  more  com- 
prehensive, but  less  phenomenal.  Then,  after  two  or 
three  years,  will  come  in  another  divine  work  of  grace. 
That  will  come  as  tranquilly  as  the  morning  breaks  out 
of  the  night.  And  some  will  believe  that  the  work  is 
not  deep,  because  there  are  so  few  physical  manifesta- 
tions in  it ;  that  is,  nobody  breaks  down,  crying,  "  God 
be  merciful  to  me  a  sinner  ! "  with  a  shout  of  "  Amen  !  " 
all  over  the  house.  That  is  what  is  called  a  very  pow- 
erful work  of  grace.  I  think  the  silences  of  nature 
are  greater  than  its  thunders.  I  think  that  what  is 
going  on  to-day  in  the  meadows,  where  millions  of 
pumps  are  drawing  up  the  water  through  the  trees  and 
through  the  air,  is  far  more  tremendous  than  any  en- 
ginery which  men  build  and  set  in  noisy  motion.  So, 
oftentimes  the  silences  of  religion  are  far  the  more 
powerful.  And  when  you  adopt  that  belief  in  the 
management  of  revivals,  till  men  are  accustomed  to 
religious  things,  there  is  no  violent  contrast  to  the  fore- 
going state,  and  they  will  have  grown  and  grown  until 
the  whole  congregation  have  come  up  to  the  higher 
level  of  thinking.  Eevivals  of  religion  in  that  state  are 
continuous,  but  not  in  the  lower,  convulsive  form  in 
which  they  usually  begin  in  untrained  populations,  or 
in  churches  which  are  not  accustomed  to  them. 

When  you  ask  me,  therefore,  if  revivals  of  religion 
can  continue  all  the  time,  I  say  that  these  climacteric 
revivals  cannot.  I  do  not  think  there  is  a  month  in  the 
year  in  which  there  are  not  conversions  in  my  congre- 
gation, and  I  do  not  think  there  is  a  year  in  which  there 
are  not  hundreds  of  converts  brought  in.  We  do  not 
look  for  very  great  overflowings  now.     One  reason,  I 


REVIVALS  SUBJECT  TO  LAW. 


269 


think,  is,  there  are  a  thousand  men  and  women  there 
who  are  living  very  near  to  the  sweetness  of  the  divine 
life,  living  sympathetically  active  lives  all  the  time,  for- 
getting themselves,  working  for  others,  clieerfuUy,  hope- 
fully, socially,  and  gladly ;  and  people,  coming  in,  are 
at  once  affected  by  that  spirit,  and  they  begin  to  blos- 
som, as  a  bush  transplanted  from  the  north  to  a  far 
southern  latitude  begins  to  blossom. 

Q.  Would  it  not  be  consistent  with  your  view  to  hold  that 
prayer  is  more  essential  to  the  production  of  effects  in  a  revival, 
than  it  is  to  the  production  of  effects  in  farming  ? 

Mr.  Beecher.  —  Certainly.  That  is  to  say,  prayer  is 
more  nearly  related  to  the  results  you  want  to  produce. 
Guano  is  better  for  farming  than  prayer,  but  prayer  is 
the  guano  of  spiritual  life.  Pray  always.  I  hold  that 
prayer  is  to  a  man  what  perfume  is  to  a  flower,  —  it 
cannot  open  its  mouth  without  perfume  coming  out  of 
it.  And  the  praying  always,  the  thought,  the  feeling, 
the  taste,  the  sense  of  pleasure,  the  social  gladness, 
all  the  while  effervesces,  so  that  it  takes  the  upward 
tendency.  It  reports  itself  continually  through  the 
higher  feelings  towards  God,  and  that  I  suppose  to 
be  prayer,  —  communion,  God  with  us.  I  suppose  you 
sought  to  prevent  the  impression  getting  abroad  that 
I  regarded  a  revival  as  a  kind  of  mechanical  matter, 
like  farming,  or  a  stroke  of  business. 

Q.  No.  But  you  say  the  supernatural  is  exerted  in  both,  and 
is  exerted  according  to  law.  I  simply  wanted  to  have  you  bring 
out  this,  —  which  I  supposed  was  implied  in  your  view,  —  that 
among  the  antecedents  in  the  production  of  this  class  of  effects  is 
prayer ;  and  in  a  sense  different  from  what  it  is  in  the  production 
of  effects  in  husbandry,  for  instance. 


270 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


Mr.  Beecher.  —  Ali,  I  do  not  know  that  I  should 
say  that. 

Q.  Well,  farming  goes  on  in  heathen  countries,  it  may  be,  if 
they  are  equally  acquainted  with  husbandry,  as  well  as  in  Chris- 
tian countries,  without  prayer. 

Mr.  Beecher.  —  Well,  that  shows  tliat  without  prayer 
you  can  farm,  but  it  does  not  show  that  you  can  farm 
without  the  divine  effluence.  It  only  shows  that  God 
does  not  always  measure  his  influence  by  prayer. 

Q.  Can  revivals  be  produced  without  prayer? 

Mr.  Beecher. —  I  have  seen  many  men  produce  re- 
vivals of  religion  that  I  did  not  think  were  very  praying 
men.  I  thought  their  work  limped,  and  was  very  im- 
perfect. Although  I  do  not  disesteem  —  I  exceedingly 
value  —  the  use  of  prayer,  yet  it  does  not  seem  to  me 
that  it  bears  the  same  relation  to  this  result  w^hich  you 
seem  to  think  it  does.  It  has  a  relation,  and  a  very  im- 
portant one. 

Q.  It  seems  to  me  it  is  perfectly  consistent  with  your  general 
view  of  the  government  of  law  in  the  case,  to  suppose  that  prayer 
is  one  of  the  appointed  antecedents  in  regard  to  spiritual  bless- 
ings. 

Mr.  Beecher.  —  It  is  one  of  them. 

Q.  And  a  very  important  one  ? 

Mr.  Beecher.  —  Well,  I  put  this  case  to  you :  Sup- 
pose that  I  go  home  and  find  my  little  girl,  five  years 
old,  in  whom  my  heart  is  bound  up,  dead  :  that  I  am  so 
constituted  that  I  would  not  stop  preaching  because  of 
my  child's  death,  but  would  feel  3  heroic  sense  of  duty 
to  preach  on  that  very  account :  that  I  should  go  into 
my  pulpit,  and  it  were  known  to  all  my  people  that 


REVIVALS  SUBJECT  TO  LAW. 


271 


my  little  girl  Mary  was  gone,  and  I  should  stand  there 
and  preach  just  as  well  as  I  could,  the  tears  running 
down  my  cheeks,  my  utterance  choked,  and  that  the 
word  should  come  back  to  me  on  prayer-meeting  night, 
when  the  lecture-room  was  crowded,  that  there  was  a 
powerful  impression  there  Would  you  say  that  that 
work  had  been  brought  on  by  the  superior  instrumen- 
tality of  prayer  ?  Was  n't  it  that  Divine  providence, 
acting  on  the  sympathies,  the  imagination,  the  heart 
and  its  best  feelings  ?  On  the  other  hand,  I  have 
known,  in  churches  where  it  was  as  dry  as  Sahara, 
many  a  godly  man  labor  through  weeks  and  months 
without  any  external  encouragement ;  but,  after  all, 
there  was  gathering  there  a  moral  momentum,  to  break 
out  by  and  by  in  tides.  Now,  I  say  that  prayer  is 
an  aid,  a  powerful  antecedent ;  yet  I  would  not  say 
that  it  is  the  indispensable  and  inevitable  one. 

Q.  Suppose  that,  when  all  those  young  people  were  got  together 
in  the  lecture-room,  there  were  no  prayer,  would  there  be  much  of 
a  revival  of  religion  ? 

Mr.  Beecher.  —  But  the  revival  has  begun,  and  of 
course  you  could  not  help  praying  under  the  circum- 
stances. 

Q.  Suppose  it  has  not  begun.  Take  Habakkuk,  for  example, 
where  he  says,  "  In  the  midst  of  the  years  make  known  ;  in  wrath, 
remember  mercy."  And  then  the  Psalmist,  "  Wilt  thou  not  re- 
vive us  again,  that  our  people  may  rejoice  in  thee  ?  "  There  are 
two  instances  of  prayer,  and  Mr.  Barnes  founded  his  series  of  ser- 
mons on  revivals  upon  one  of  these  very  texts.  And  on  the  day 
of  Pentecost  men  prayed  for  the  outpouring  of  the  Spirit.  What 
do  you  make  of  these  instances  ? 


Mr.  Beecher.  —  I  don't  want  to  make  anything  of 


272 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


them.  They  are  made.  You  put  the  question  as  if  I 
had  propounded  the  theory  tliat  revivals  of  religion 
are  possible  without  prayer,  and  that  there  was  no  im- 
portant relation  of  prayer.  I  say,  No  ;  I  say  that  that 
is  one  of  the  channels  through  which  causation  seems 
to  flow.  It  is  but  one.  You  brought  up  Habakkuk's 
revival,  —  or  one  that  he  prayed  for  and  did  n't  get. 


X. 


THE  CONDUCT  OF  REVIVALS. 

CLOSED  last  week,  in  discussing  the  ques- 
tion of  revivals  of  religion,  with  the  consid- 
eration of  times  and  seasons,  such  as  might 
favor,  or  such  as  might  hinder,  the  devel- 
opment of  a  religious  enthusiasm  in  a  community. 
We  must  bring  to  mind  again,  in  going  forward  with 
this  subject,  the  prime  idea,  the  root  of  revival ;  it 
is  the  development  in  a  church,  or  in  a  community, 
of  a  deep  religious  enthusiasm  under  social  aspects 
and  with  reference  to  some  immediate  results.  That, 
then,  which  shall  tend  to  arrest  the  attention  of  men, 
to  interest  them  in  religious  matters,  to  produce  a 
normal  excitement  which  may  be  called  enthusiasm, 
and  to  turn  this  enthusiasm  to  certain  immediate  and 
personal  ends,  —  that  is  the  thing  to  be  sought  by  every 
one  who  strives  to  develop  among  his  people  a  revival 
of  religion.  Revivals  are  in  no  sense  to  be  regarded  as 
antagonistic  to  regular  institutional  work.  They  do 
something  which  cannot  be  done  by  ordinary  instru- 
mentalities. They  do  many  things  far  more  easily 
than  they  can  be  done  in  any  other  way.    There  are 

12*  R 


274 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


men  who  can  be  lifted  out  of  the  conditions  in  which 
they  are  living  when  there  is  a  swell  in  the  whole 
community,  that  could  not  be  lifted  without  this 
collateral  social  aid.  I  am  not  speaking  of  what  is 
within  the  power  of  the  Divine  Spirit.  I  am  only 
speaking  of  what  we  know  to  be  facts  in  the  ordinary 
development  of  Christian  work.  Without  a  doubt,  by 
the  exercise  of  Divine  power,  anything  might  be  done ; 
but,  without  a  doubt,  the  Divine  power  does  not  act  in 
communities,  except  by  methods,  channels,  laws,  instru- 
ments ;  and  we  are  to  watch  and  study  these,  in  order 
that  we  may  put  ourselves  in  the  line  of  the  working 
of  Providence. 

EFFECT  OF  REVIVALS  WITHIN  THE  CHURCH. 

The  resvilts,  then,  at  which  we  aim,  in  revivals  of 
religion,  are  twofold.  First,  the  immediate  conversion 
of  men  from  selfishness  and  worldliness  to  a  Christian 
and  godly  life  ;  and,  secondly,  the  exaltation  of  Christian 
character  in  the  church  to  a  higher  plane,  to  a  nobler 
form  of  development.  Even  if  there  were  to  be  no  in- 
gathering from  the  world,  a  refreshing  —  as  it  is  called 
in  old-fashioned  language  —  a  refreshing  of  grace  in 
a  church  is  pre-eminently  desirable,  pre-eminently  a 
blessing  from  God,  though  it  may  stop  with  the  mem- 
bers of  the  church.  For,  as  our  power  is  not  numeri- 
cal, but  moral,  it  is  not  so  much  the  number  as  the 
quality  of  the  members  in  a  church  that  determines  its 
power.  A  church  of  twenty  men  who  are  eminent  in 
grace  and  goodness  is  a  larger  church,  if  you  measure 
size  by  power,  than  a  church  of  two  thousand  that  are 
living  a  very  low  and  worldly  life.    So  that  when  men 


THE  CONDUCT  OF  REVILALS. 


275 


in  the  church  have  been  living  in  routine  Christianity, 
without  any  very  active  development  of  personal  faith 
and  of  the  sweetness  of  the  Christian  graces,  it  may 
often  be  the  case  that  a  revival  of  religion  will  do  its 
Divine  work  within  the  church,  and,  though  there  are 
not  many  to  be  counted  as  added  to  the  list,  the  church 
itself  will  be  immensely  strengthened,  and  its  pov/er 
augmented.  The  desire  of  gathering  in  a  large  number 
from  without  is  not  indeed  unnatural  or  reprehensible ; 
nor  is  the  work  unimportant.  But  it  is  still  more  im- 
portant that,  in  gathering  in  these  men,  those  that 
gather  should  themselves  be  built  up,  developed,  and 
made  more  powerful. 

BORN  AGAIN. 

As  to  the  former  purpose,  we  seek  in  a  revival  of 
religion  the.  ingathering  of  men  to  a  new  life.  I  read 
in  the  Word,  —  I  had  almost  said,  with  regret,  —  "  Ye 
must  be  born  again  "  ;  because  my  lieart  looks  at  it  in 
such  a  way  that  I  feel  that,  instead  of  being  a  duty,  it 
is  the  greatest  privilege  ;  it  is  a  wonder  of  grace  almost 
contravening  the  order  of  nature.  "Ye  7aay  be  born 
again,"  as  if  it  were  a  permission,  would  seem  to  me 
almost  a  better  rendering.  It  is  true  that  it  is  impera- 
tive, —  "  Ye  must  be  "  ;  but,  after  all,  "  Ye  may  "  is  still 
more  sweet,  and  not  less  imperative.  If  a  man,  after 
living  forty-five  or  fifty  years,  had  committed  such 
errors  and  mistakes  as  to  be  compelled  to  retire  bank- 
rupt into  private  life,  all  his  business  experience  only 
showing  him  that  he  had  gone  wrong,  and  could  then 
have  the  privilege  of  beginning  again,  with  all  his 
added  experience,  just  as  fresh  and  hopeful  as  if  he  had 


276 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


never  made  a  mistake,  what  a  privilege  that  would 
seem  to  him  !  But  this  he  cannot  do.  He  has  no  credit; 
and,  in  the  ordinary  tenure  of  life,  there  is  no  time,  after 
the  fiftieth  year,  for  a  man  to  change  the  impressions  of 
the  community  about  him.  The  circumstances  are  all 
against  him,  and  he  must  go  on,  and  probably  end  his 
life  in  poverty.  See  how  it  is  with  Christian  character. 
The  community  is  unspeakably  more  lax  than  God  is, 
and  permits  all  manner  of  prevarications,  all  manner 
of  deceits,  all  manner  of  cruelties.  While  men  are 
moderately  respectable,  it  winks  at  them  and  covers 
them  and  indulges  them,  until  they  go  below  a  cer- 
tain line,  and  then  there  is  nothing  that  has  such  lion's- 
teeth  as  the  community.  When  a  man  is  broken  down 
by  sinning  and  wants  to  come  back  again ;  when  he  has 
stolen ;  when  he  has  betrayed  fiduciary  trusts ;  when  he 
has  been  sent  once  to  the  penitentiary  for  a  public 
crime,  and  every  man  stands  against  him,  if  not  with 
fierceness,  yet  with  cold  distrust,  and  with  unwilling- 
ness to  help  him,  —  if  then  a  man  could  come  back 
from  the  prison  and  have  it  said  to  him,  "  Now, 
then,  by  proper  conduct  you  may  stand  just  as  you 
stood  before  in  the  community,"  what  a  bounty  of 
blessing  it  would  be  to  him  !  But  here  is  the  word 
of  God's  grace,  saying  to  men  that  have  lived  for  ten, 
twenty,  thirty  years  in  the  way  of  transgression,  "  Now 
you  may  begin  again  just  like  a  little  child,  and 
take  a  new  start.  God  is  lenient,  gracious,  merciful, 
slow  to  anger,  abundant  in  goodness,  forgiving  iniquity, 
transgression,  and  sin."  It  is  this  one  thing  that  we 
bear  in  mind,  —  the  possibility  of  renewing  the  moral 
character  of  men.    The  great  point  of  doubt  has  been 


THE  CONDUCT  OF  REVIVALS. 


277 


whether  it  is  possible  to  renew  moral  character  sud- 
denly, whether  it  can  be  done  by  afflatus.  No,  it 
cannot.  That  is,  character  is  a  thing  that  grows 
slowly,  but  the  beginnings  of  it  can  be  established  ; 
the  foundations  can  be  relaid  of  elements  which  go  to 
establish  new  habits,  and  a  character  can  be  begun  on 
a  new  basis.  This  may  be  very  sudden.  A  gambler 
may  cease  in  a  moment  to  gamble,  and  never  touch 
again  the  instruments  of  deceit.  A  drunkard  may,  in 
a  single  moment,  come  to  a  decision  by  which  he  shall 
never  again  touch  the  fatal  cup.  The  effects  of  his  past 
misconduct  will  not  pass  away  at  once ;  but  the  man 
has  made  a  stand  that  will  affect  his  whole  character 
for  time  and  for  eternity.  A  man  may  be  pursuing  a 
dissolute  life,  and  in  a  single  hour  he  may  set  the  rudder 
so  that  his  whole  track  after  that  will  be  upon  another 
line.  The  beginnings  may  be  sudden.  It  is  the  knowl- 
edge of  the  fact  that  there  is  a  power  by  which  men, 
not  in  single  instances  alone,  but  in  ranks  and  in  multi- 
tudes, may  be  brought  in,  that  inspires  us  to  work  in 
revivals  of  religion.  Men  may  be  changed.  We  do 
not  get  up,  therefore,  a  religious  enthusiasm  in  a  social 
form  simply  to  enjoy  ourselves  and  to  exalt  the  feeling 
of  the  church,  but  because  in  the  heat  thus  generated 
you  can  develop  in  wicked  men  a  newness  of  life  which 
it  would  seem  very  difficult  to  develop  under  any  other 
circumstances.  This  is  the  language  of  experience  and 
observation,  and  not  merely  of  theory. 

WHERE  TO  BEGIN  REVIVAL  WORK. 

The  first  question  that  would  naturally  come  up  in 
treating  of  how  to  begin  is :  In  working  for  a  revival 


278 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


of  religion,  shall  the  man  w^ho  has  the  conduct  of  af- 
fairs begin  with  the  church,  or  shall  he  begin  with  the 
community  ?  And  this  question  becomes  somewhat 
more  important,  because  there  have  been  a  great  many 
reviva-lists,  as  they  are  called,  who  have  had  the  gift  or 
power  given  them  by  the  Master  of  the  church  of  de- 
veloping this  enthusiasm  of  religion  in  a  social  form  in 
communities.  Mr.  Avery  was  accustomed  —  and,  if 
alive,  T  suppose  he  would  still  follow  that  course  —  to 
refuse  to  say  a  single  word  to  sinners  until  he  had 
dealt  with  the  church.  He  usually  called  them  to- 
gether, set  their  sins  in  order  before  their  eyes,  and 
demanded  of  them  certain  expiatory  experiences ;  and 
when  he  had  got  the  church  broken  in,  then  he  turned 
to  the  other  sinners,  and  opened  the  doors  of  hope  and 
grace  for  them.  I  don't  say  that  this  is  not  proper  some- 
times; but  it  was,  I  think,  his  uniform  practice,  on  the 
theory  that  it  is  in  vain  to  expect  anything  to  be  done 
with  men  out  of  the  clmrcli,  while  the  stumbling-block 
of  the  church  lies  right  in  their  way.  Others  have  pur- 
sued a  directly  opposite  course,  and  have  begun  first  to 
deal  with  the  conore^ration  at  larg^e.  Others  —  as  Dr. 
Finney,  for  instance  —  have  attempted  to  develop  a 
large  system  of  doctrinal  views,  and  to  bring  the  com- 
munity very  generally  under  a  common  theological 
influence,  before  they  began  to  make  any  important 
strokes  for  results  ;  intellectualizing,  indoctrinating  the 
community  for  a  long  time.  I  am  not  here  to  criticise 
that ;  but  this  I  say,  there  is  no  prescriptive  way,  and 
there  is  no  one  way.  You  must  determine  by  circum- 
stances. If  you  were  to  ask  General  Moltke  what  was 
the  proper  mode  of  taking  a  fort,  from  the  north  or  the 


THE  CONDUCT  OF  REVIVALS. 


279 


south,  from  the  east  or  the  west,  he  would  laugh  at 
you.  He  would  say  that  the  way  to  take  a  fort  is  to 
find  where  it  is  weakest,  and  to  attack  there.  There 
are  circumstances  in  which  your  force  should  be  con- 
centrated on  the  church ;  there  are  circumstances  in 
which  it  should  not.  In  my  own  ministry,  I  have  con- 
sidered the  church  and  the  people  outside  of  it  as  all 
sinners  together,  and  I  have  worked  for  the  whole 
crowd.  It  is  true  that  a  united  church,  brought  into  a 
high  spiritual  state,  will  have  a  very  powerful  moral 
influence  upon  the  world  outside  ;  but  it  is  just  as  true 
that  a  single  conversion  outside  will  be  a  trumpet-call 
to  wake  up  a  whole  church.  The  action  from  the  out- 
side to  the  inside  is  just  as  easy,  often,  as  from  the  in- 
side to  the  outside.  Carry  on  both  systems.  Help  the 
church  by  society.  Help  society  by  the  church.  Work 
one  a^rainst  the  other.  Don't  fall  into  routine,  or  into 
.•^^et  schools  of  revivalism.  It  is  spiritual  engineering, 
and  you  are  to  judge  by  the  circumstances  and  the  facts 
in  the  case  what  is  the  wisest  and  best  thing  to  do. 

PREPARATION  IN  THE  PREACHER. 

As  to  the  means  that  are  to  be  employed  to  develop 
a  revival  in  the  church,  first  and  foremost  I  mention 
preaching ;  and,  in  order  to  this,  much  depends  on  your 
own  state  of  mind.  I  think  that,  almost  always,  a  man 
has  in  his  own  heart  the  prophecy  of  these  things.  I 
have  waked  up  in  spring  mornings,  and  the  air  has 
smelt  differently  from  what  it  did  before.  I  have  gone 
out  of  doors,  not  thinking  that  it  was  spring,  but  it  was 
brought  home  to  me  by  the  changed  aspect  of  things 
around.    So  I  have  found,  in  my  own  ministry,  tliat 


280 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


when  my  heart  was  right  for  this  work  of  God,  I  some- 
how had  it  brought  to  me  in  a  way  which  inspired  cour- 
age and  zeal  and  purpose ;  an  intensity  of  feeling  that 
assured  me  I  was  going  to  succeed, — not  I,  but  the  grace 
of  God  that  was  in  me.  I  had  a  courage,  a  sort  of  certi- 
tude in  me.  "  The  time  has  come !  the  time  has  come  ! " 
and  I  went  down  into  the  work  with  the  feeling,  "  I  will 
not  be  denied  !  I  will  have  this  blessing  !  Slay  me,  but 
give  me  this  !  "  And  where  a  man  has  even  the  smallest 
beginnings  of  this  feeling,  he  is  pretty  sure  to  impart  it. 

'Now,  how  shall  a  man  come  at  it,  if  he  has  n't  it  ? 
I  might  say  to  a  pastor,  Art  thou  a  master  in  Israel, 
and  knowest  not  these  thing^s  ?  "  You  have  not  had  a 
charge,  and  so  I  don't  blame  you.  In  what  way  shall 
a  man  who  has  the  cure  of  souls  and  is  waiting  for 
souls;  who  believes  in  God  and  immortality,  in  the 
Lord  Jesus  Christ,  in  the  dying  and  necessitous  condi- 
tion of  men,  —  in  what  way  shall  he  come  into  active 
sympathy  with  them  ?  Suppose  a  surgeon  should  say 
to  me,  going  down  to  a  great  military  hospital,  "  I  am 
going  down  to  a  great  work,  and  I  don't  know  but 
my  zeal  and  courage  will  flag  ;  how  would  you  advise 
me  to  prepare  to  take  an  interest  in  this  thing  and 
sympathize  with  these  poor  w^ounded  soldiers?"  If 
he  needed  telling,  he  w^ould  not  be  fit  to  be  a  surgeon. 
The  circumstances  themselves  will  be  all  the  incite- 
ment he  needs.  When  a  man  looks  over  his  congre- 
gation, and  thinks  of  them,  feels  for  them,  prays  for 
them,  carries  them  in  his  heart,  when  they  are  really 
dear  to  him,  —  in  part  because  they  are  dear  to  Christ, 
who  is  dearer  to  him  than  life  itself,  —  it  seems  to  me  he 
needs  very  little  instruction  on  this  matter.    Only  this : 


THE  CONDUCT  OF  REVIVALS. 


281 


if  you  have  cares  that  are  freighting  and  harassing  you, 
lay  them  aside.  If  you  have  worldly  business,  or  any- 
thing of  that  kind,  that  is  absorbing  your  time  and  pre- 
venting the  kindling  in  you  of  an  enthusiastic  devo- 
tion to  your  work,  put  that  aside,  no  matter  what  it 
may  cost  you.  If  you  find  your  own  spiritual  feelings 
have  been  scattered,  take  those  means  which  you  recom- 
mend to  your  people,  —  your  Bible,  your  closet.  Humble 
yourself  before  God.  But  I  beseech  you  to  avoid  that 
kind  of  crawling,  that  prostration,  that  takes  the  very 
manhood  out  of  a  man.  I  don't  think  God  wants  to 
have  a  man  crawl  before  him  like  a  worm.  I  don't 
think  he  is  any  more  pleased  to  see  that  than  you 
would  be  to  see  your  children  act  so.  I  have  a  little 
dog  at  the  farm  that,  when  I  come  home,  is  so  exceed- 
ingly glad  that  he  lies  down  and  squirms  and  rolls 
over  on  his  back,  so  that  I  want  to  kick  him.  If  I  had 
a  child  that  acted  so  toward  me,  I  should  not  esteem, 
him  the  more.  That  same  dog,  although  he  is  so  affec- 
tionate, will  kill  chickens,  and  he  never  can  hide  the 
working  of  his  conscience,  —  for  he  has  a  moral  nature 
in  him,  —  and  I  know  just  as  soon  as  I  see  Frolic, 
whether  he  has  been  killing  chickens.  If  I  point  my 
finger  downward  he  is  so  submissive,  and  flattens  him- 
self like  a  pancake,  and  crawls  up  to  me  for  forgiveness  1 
Now,  a  dog  don't  know  any  better,  but  a  man  ought  to. 
And  I  have  seen  men  who  seemed  to  think  that  if  they 
emptied  themselves  before  God  and  made  themselves 
mean,  and  said  all  manner  of  self-abasing  things,  it 
would  fit  them  for  the  work.  No !  Manliness  !  No 
doubt  every  man  has  enough  to  confess,  but  God  wants 
men  to  conae  to  him  as  though  they  were  his  sons.  I 


282 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


am  a  son  of  God,  discrowned,  dishonored  by  imperfec- 
tion, by  manifold  transgression,  but  my  Father's  blood 
is  in  me.  I  am  a  son  of  God !  I  will  confess  my  sin, 
but  I  will  stand  before  him  as  his  son  still.  I  am 
willing  to  be  chastised,  but  I  am  not  willing  to  crawl 
in  the  dust,  as  if  I  were  not  an  immortal  creature.  It 
is  not  necessary  to  weaken  yourself  so.  But  pour  out 
your  heart  with  strong  desires  before  God.  Love  men ! 
Love  God!  Work! 

Now,  as  soon  as  a  man  comes  into  that  state,  if  he 
is  going  to  be  successful,  his  preaching  will  be  intensely 
earnest,  it  will  be  exceedingly  clear,  it  will  be  personal. 
So  much  for  the  state  of  mind  preparatory  to  preaching. 

SPECIAL  KIND  OF  PREACHING  REQUIRED. 

At  other  times  you  are  giving  general  instruction, 
but  now  you  converge  the  knowledge  that  men  are  sup- 
posed to  have.  You  are  bringing  it  to  a  definite  pur- 
pose. When  a  man  is  stating  law  in  the  lecture-room, 
he  pursues  one  course ;  but  when  he  stands  before  a 
jury,  to  win  a  case,  all  that  he  ever  knew  is  concentrated 
for  a  definite  purpose.  He  thinks  of  their  verdict.  We 
preach  a  great  many  sermons,  and  properly,  which  are 
to  promote  meditation,  which  are  to  bring  forth  their 
fruit  gradually  in  the  family  and  in  the  community  at 
large.  That  is  well  enough ;  but  when  revivals  have 
set  in,  our  preaching  is  for  immediate  results  in  the 
hearts  and  souls  and  consciences  of  our  fellow-men. 
So  that,  while  every  sermon  is  an  instruction,  it  is  also  a 
plea.  Every  sermon  is  to  have  in  it  a  grasp,  an  inten- 
sity of  hold  upon  men,  that  shall,  from  day  to  day  and 
from  week  to  week,  have  its  influence.    You  shall  feel 


THE  CONDUCT  OF  REVIVALS. 


283 


in  yourself  that  every  time  you  preach  a  sermon  you 
have  drawn  some  man,  you  have  gained  some  man. 
That  is  the  ideal ;  that  is  the  aim. 

In  preaching,  in  revivals  of  religion,  the  great  things 
you  wish  to  secure  are  the  reason,  the  moral  sense,  and 
the  imagination  of  men.  Men  work  more  by  imagina- 
tion than  we  suppose ;  not  in  the  form  in  which  it  is 
associated  with  poetry,  but  with  that  action  of  it  which 
brings  invisible  things  to  sight,  which  enlarges  the 
scope  of  existence,  —  in  short,  which  brings  the  eternal 
future  very  near  to  men.  Sermons  must  bring  out 
those  truths  of  God's  word  that  are  sure  to  have  effect. 
They  must  bring  out  those  truths  which  satisfy  the  judg- 
ment, the  common-sense  of  men ;  which  also  frequently 
arraign  and  satisfy  the  conscience  ;  and  which  do  these 
things  in  the  light  of  the  higher  relations  which  men 
sustain  to  the  future  and  to  the  government  of  God.  I 
say  this,  because  many  people  suppose  that,  in  revivals 
of  religion,  the  only  thing  to  do  is  to  address  the  feel- 
ings, to  sing  men  along,  to  exhort  them  along,  to  carry 
them  along  they  scarcely  know  how.  There  is  a  place 
for  singing  and  for  the  social  exercises  in  the  subordi- 
nate meetings ;  but  a  minister  ought  never  to  preach  so 
well,  so  strongly,  so  clearly,  and  so  compactly,  never 
with  such  appeal  to  a  man's  deepest  nature  and  through 
his  imagination  to  his  whole  being,  as  in  the  initial  state 
of  revivals  of  religion. 

FREQUENCY  OF  SERVICES. 

As  to  the  amount  of  preaching  that  is  to  be  done,  or 
the  number  of  meetings  that  are  to  be  held,  I  would 
say  that  depends  on  circumstances.    In  good  old  New 


284 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


England  times,  to  a  reflective  people,  accustomed  to  argue, 
cautious,  conservative,  you  might  preach  powerfully  or? 
Sunday,  have  one  extra  meeting  during  the  week,  and 
perhaps  one  or  two  more  prayer-meetings  in  neighbor- 
hoods. Tliat  w^ould  serve  to  bring  people  forward.  They 
would  get  along  on  that.  But  take  later  communities 
that  are  full  of  vital  influence,  nimble,  enterprising, 
active,  with  fugitive  plans  and  thoughts,  changing 
every  day,  rushing,  —  why,  that  would  produce  scarcely 
any  impression  upon  them ;  and  the  proper  treatment 
is  by  frequent  meetings  and  continuous  meetings,  by 
iteration  that  shall  overcome  all  the  distractions  outside 
of  them.  The  aim  is  to  bring  men  into  a  state  in  which 
they  are  susceptible  of  moral  development,  of  the  high- 
er forms  of  Christian  feeling  ;  and,  therefore,  how  fre- 
quently you  are  to  . preach  depends  very  much  upon  the 
parish  you  are  in.  Sometimes  once  or  twice  a  week, 
sometimes  every  day  in  the  week,  with  prayer-meetings 
besides.  I  think,  in  a  time  of  revival,  a  minister  can 
generally  preach  once  a  day  and  once  or  twice  on  Sun- 
day much  easier  than,  at  other  times,  he  can  preach 
once  or  twice  in  the  week.  Nothing  so  strengthens  a 
man,  or  makes  him  so  fertile,  or  enables  him  to  carry 
work  so  well,  as  to  be  in  a  revival  of  religion.  There 
is  some  difference  among  men.  Some  have  so  slender 
a  constitution,  their  vital  force  is  so  insufficient,  that 
they  cannot  bear  the  strain  on  nature.  Yet,  on  the 
average,  men  can  carry  more  work  than  they  think 
they  can,  if  they  don't  squander  themselves.  I  don't 
hold  up  my  own  case  as  an  example.  I  have  an  uncom- 
monly strong  constitution,  and  have  great  resiliency 
and  recuperativeness  ;  but  I  have  preached  every  day 


THE  CONDUCT  OF  REVIVALS. 


285 


for  long  periods,  and  twice  on  Sunday  besides,  holding 
an  inquiry-meeting  and  a  prayer-meeting  and  doing  a 
great  deal  of  visiting  intermediately,  and  that  too,  as 
far  as  I  could  see,  without  any  weariness  or  reaction 
afterward.  It  was  not  merely  because  I  was  strong. 
It  was  because  I  worked  on  the  saccharine  juices,  and 
not  on  the  acid. 

COURAGE  GIVES  STRENGTH. 

If  you  work  on  the  principle  of  ''awful  responsi- 
bility," if  you  have  all  the  time  the  feeling  of  anxiety 
and  care,  if  you  go  about  bowed  down  with  worry,  you 
will  be  exhausted  very  quickly.  You  cannot  bear  much. 
But  go  about  from  day  to  day,  in  the  midst  of  the  out- 
pourings of  God's  spirit,  w^ith  this  feeling  :  The  Lord 
Jesus  Christ  is  my  elder  brother.  He  thinks  of  me 
and  of  my  people  a  thousand  times  more  than  I  do. 
This  is  his  work.  He  will  surely  accomplish  it,  and 
he  says  to  me,  '  Trust  in  me,  love  me,  hope,  and  be 
courageous.' "  If  I  go  on  the  principle  of  love  and 
trust,  I  can  do  ten  times  the  work  that  I  could  do  on 
the  principle  of  anxiety  and  conscious  responsibility. 
There  is  nothing  that  wears  a  man  out  so  soon  as  worry, 
and  there  is  no  worry  like  that  which  comes  from  the 
attrition  of  anxiety  in  ministerial  life.  Ministers  are 
so  afraid  they  shall  not  do  things  just  right ;  so  afraid 
they  have  not  dealt  with  this  man  just  as  they 
should  do  ;  so  afraid  that  sermon  was  not  quite  right. 
Of  course  it  was  not.  You  may  as  well  take  that  for 
granted  in  the  beginning.  You  will  never  do  anything 
just  right,  never  say  anything  just  right.  God  knew 
it  when  he  made  us,  and  he  made  us  notwithstand- 


286 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


ing ;  he  knows  it,  and  employs  us  with  that  under- 
standing. 

No  man  is  perfect  here.  All  our  best  work  is  full 
of  chaff.  If  we  could  see  the  truth  as  God  sees  it, 
and  then  as  we  preach  it,  the  last  would  seem  to  us 
despicable.  The  old  figure  of  our  righteousness  being 
filthy  rags  is  true,  in  this  higher  interpretation  of  moral 
feeling.  Therefore,  let  it  be  true  at  once  and  for  all. 
Dismiss  it  forever ;  and  do  not,  all  the  time,  act  as 
if  you  thought  you  could  be  perfect,  and  it  was 
only  from  want  of  vigilance  or  anxiety  that  you  had 
not  been  perfect.  Let  a  man  simply  have  this  testi- 
mony in  himself :  "  I  am  ready  to  do  anything ;  I 
am  willing  to  put  all  the  strength  I  have  into  my 
work.  Here  I  am,  what  there  is  of  me  ;  I  throw  it  all 
into  the  work."  Thus  let  him  have  some  use  for  his 
God  ;  trust  him  ;  believe  in  him.  What  is  the  use  of 
having  redemption  through  Jesus  Christ,  reconciliation 
and  love,  and  all  promise  and  hope,  and  then  going 
bowed  down  as  if  you  were  a  galley  slave  ?  Be  your- 
self,, before  your  congregation,  what  you  want  them  to 
be  ;  and,  while  you  preach  the  love  of  Christ  for  human 
souls,  show  them  that  you  have  it,  by  your  confidence 
and  cheer.  For  there  is  no  time  when  a  man  ought  to 
sing  and  whistle  and  laugh  and  feel  so  happy  as  in  the 
coming  of  a  revival  of  religion.  In  Litchfield,  when  I 
saw  a  thunder-storm  coming  up,  I  used  to  run  into  the 
house  and  ask  my  mother  to  let  me  put  on  my  old 
clothes  and  go  out  in  the  rain  ;  for  nothing  was  so  grand 
to  me  as  being  out  in  the  tempest,  and  seeing  the  elms 
swayed  and  the  long  drought  broken  by  the  coming  on 
of  the  storm.    I  exulted  ;  and  though  the  birds  were 


THE  CONDUCT  OF  REVIVALS. 


287 


all  gone,  I  was  there  to  sing.  When,  after  a  drought  in 
the  congregation,  things  are  beginning  to  move  again, 
that  is  the  time  for  exultation.  You  need  not  be  afraid 
you  will  grieve  God's  spirit  away.  If  God's  spirit 
could  be  grieved  away,  it  would  have  been  done  long  ago, 
when  you  were  preaching  old  tinkered-up  sermons, 
repeating  for  the  five-hundredth  time  the  message  you 
did  n't  care  for,  first  or  last.  But  when  men  begin  to  be 
alive,  w^hen  there  begin  to  be  some  real  affinities  with 
God  and  Christ,  then  is  not  the  time  to  be  anxious  and 
low-browed.  It  is  the  time  for  gladness.  In  this 
spirit,  a  man  can  preach  every  day.  He  can't  help  him- 
self. The  days  will  not  be  long  enough,  not  enough  of 
them  in  the  week,  for  him  to  preach,  provided  he  has 
this  impetus,  this  "  rejoicing  in  God."  You  know  Paul 
said,  —  he  had  a  double-barreled  gun  to  fire,  —  "  Eejoice 
in  the  Lord  ! "  and  when  he  fired  off  the  other  barrel, 
he  said,  Again  I  say,  Rejoice  ! "  This  buoyancy,  this 
cheerfulness,  this  hopefulness,  this  holy  confidence,  this 
radiant  gladness  in  the  minister,  will  have  a  direct  bear- 
ing on  the  production  of  the  effects  lie  seeks  by  preach- 
ing. Under  ordinary  circumstances,  make  that  your 
main  reliance.  Preach  the  gospel,  —  the  power,  the 
nature,  the  love,  the  justice  of  God,  the  condition  of 
men,  their  sinfulness,  their  profound  danger ;  open  the 
future  to  them ;  let  them  see  into  what  they  are  going  ; 
analyze  their  character  ;  measure  them  by  their  own 
standards,  and  show  them  how  low  their  condition  is  ; 
lift  the  standard  higher,  and  show  them  how  much  lower 
they  are,  until  you  come  up  to  the  ideal  and  measure 
them  through  and  through.  Deal  with  them  with  all 
the  earnestness  and  vigor  that  God  has  given  you. 


288 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


DO  NOT  WORK  BY  AUTHORITY. 

Then,  while  you  are  preaching  in  this  way,  remember 
that  while  you  are  master,  while  you  dominate  them, 
,  while  you  have  authority  over  them,  while  you  are 
zealous  for  the  truth  and  glory  of  God,  on  the  other 
hand,  —  strange  and  anomalous  condition,  —  you  have 
got  to  lie  down  before  them,  you  have  got  to  let  them 
walk  over  you,  and  be  their  servant.  When  you  go 
fishing,  you  have  no  authority  to  lay  upon  the  brooks. 
You  have  got  to  find  out  how  fish  are  to  be  caught,  and 
you  have  to  catch  them  in  that  way.  If  you  are  fish- 
ing for  trout,  you  go  to  work  one  way,  for  perch 
another,  and  for  bullheads  another,  and  you  bob  for 
eels.  You  may  throw  the  net  for  some,  and  some  you 
never  can  catch  in  a  net.  Some  you  never  can  catch 
with  a  set  line  ;  and,  if  you  want  to  get  them,  you  must 
begin  afar  off.  I  have  seen  a  man,  when  he  came  into 
the  meadow  where  the  trout-brook  ran,  lie  down  some 
four  or  five  rods  before  he  got  to  the  brook  ;  for,  said 
he,  "  The  very  jar  of  the  ground,  light  as  I  step,  will  be 
felt  by  them  "  ;  and  he  crawled  up  to  the  edge  of  the 
brook,  and  then,  lifting  himself  up,  he  threw  his  line ; 
and  when  he  had  got  his  trout,  he  did  not  care  if  he 
had  crawled  an  acre  over.  Now,  a  man  that  fishes 
for  men  has  got  to  fish  for  them  in  all  sorts  of  ways. 
You  cannot  put  your  royal  robes  on  and  walk  down 
the  street  and  have  men  come  out  and  cry,  Convert 
me  !  convert  me  ! "  You  have  got  to  treat  proud  men  in 
the  way  that  proud  men  have  to  be  treated.  Some  men 
come  to  you  that  you  did  n't  expect.  Some  will  hold 
back,  from  whom  you  expected  the  greatest  help.  You 


t-Hfe  CONDUCT  OF  REVIVALS. 


289 


will  have  all  sorts  of  surprises,  and  your  business  is 
constant  and  various.  Suit  yourselves  to  emergencies  ; 
your  business  is  to  win  men.  Win  them  one  by  one,  one 
by  one.  I  don't  think  there  is  any  joy  so  great  in  this 
world  as  the  joy  of  working  in  a  revival,  when  a  man  is  in 
good  health,  and  when  there  is  a  genuine  work  of  grace 
going  on,  and  those  whom  he  respects  and  loves  are 
breaking  out,  one  by  one,  into  new  life  and  uttering 
their  joy.  I  don't  think  there  is  anything  this  side  of 
heaven  that  is  comparable  to  that ;  and  I  have  said,  in 
these  moments,  that  all  the  kingdoms  of  the  earth 
would  be  nothing  to  me  compared  with  the  royalty  I 
carried  in  my  heart,  when  I  saw  men  bowing  down  in 
this  way  and  coming  to  God.  It  is  reward  enough. 
A  man  never  seems  to  himself  to  have  so  little  person- 
ality, never  seems  to  care  so  little  about  himself,  to 
have  so  much  thought  of  God,  such  insight  into  the- 
ology, such  perception  of  moral  truths,  as  when  he 
stands  in  the  presence  of  men  roused  by  the  spirit  of 
God,  and  is  obliged  to  meet  their  case,  and  to  admin- 
ister to  their  wants.  It  is  astonishing  what  revelation, 
refreshment,  reinvigoration,  indoctrination,  inspiration, 
is  given  to  men  who  are  engaged  in  the  same  work  in 
which  God  is  engaged,  —  bringing  sons  and  daughters 
home  to  glory. 

VARIETY  OF  METHODS. 

I  am  speaking  of  the  variety  of  instrumentalities 
that  can  be  employed.  I  have  given  an  emphasis  to 
preaching,  though  not  more,  I  think,  than  it  deserves. 
There  is  a  variety  of  other  instrumentalities  that  bear 
more  or  less  directly  upon  the  social  side ;  and  I  may 

VOL.  II.  13  S 


290 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


mention,  first,  the  multiplication  of  meetings  and 
prayer-meetings.  It  is  sometimes  well  that  a  meeting 
should  be  thrown  entirely  out  of  its  shackles  of  cus- 
tom. So  prone  are  we  to  run  in  ruts  that,  once  in  a 
while,  it  does  us  good  to  break  up  accustomed  forms 
and  methods,  and  make  the  meetings  stand  out  as  some- 
thing singular  and  peculiar.  Thus,  before  my  time,  in 
early  days  in  Brooklyn,  meetings  were  held  in  the  lec- 
ture-room of  the  church  that  stood  on  the  ground  where 
Plymouth  Church  is  now,  at  five  o'clock  in  the  morning, 
and  they  were  thronged.  Well,  it  would  not  have  been 
wise,  the  next  year,  to  put  the  meetings  at  such  an  hour. 
But,  for  that  one  time,  the  very  singularity  of  it  kindled 
men,  and,  during  the  whole  of  that  season,  the  room  was 
not  large  enough  to  hold  the  people.  Something  out 
of  the  ordinary  way  serves  to  arouse  the  attention  of 
the  community  and  draw  their  interest. 

PROTRACTED  MEETINGS. 

Protracted  meetings  are  eminently  useful  in  the 
conduct  of  revivals  of  religion.  We  all  know  that  pro- 
tracted meetings  are  necessary  for  the  development 
of  the  social  in  other  things.  Political  campaigns  are 
one  continuous  series  of  protracted  meetings.  If  you 
wish  to  get  up  an  enthusiasm  in  anything,  it  must 
be  by  constant  repetition,  iteration.  Suppose  a  man 
should  undertake  to  make  a  sword,  and  should  come 
to-day  and  give  it  one  blow  and  go  home,  and  to-mor- 
row should  come  back  and  give  it  another  blow  and 
go  home,  and  so  on ;  how  long  would  it  take  a  man,  at 
that  rate,  to  be  an  artificer  ?  ISTo ;  he  must  repeat  his 
blows,  one  after  the  other,  while  the  iron  is  hot.    It  is 


THE  CONDUCT  OF  REVIVALS. 


291 


not  enough  that  a  man  should  go  to  meeting  once  on 
Sunday,  in  order  to  do  certain  things. 

Thousands  of  men  are  not  able  to  carry  the  Sunday 
far  down  into  the  week.  They  need  to  have  their  im- 
pressions renewed.  They  are  fitful,  feeble ;  they  don't 
generate  thought  easily  for  themselves.  There  are 
thousands  of  persons  not  able  to  generate  much  feeling 
for  themselves;  but  if  you  bring  them  into  a  mass- 
meeting  when  there  is  a  great  deal  of  feeling  about,  they 
catch  it  by  sympathy ;  it  helps  their  weakness  :  and 
this  is  the  theory  of  protracted  meetings,  that  while 
the  strong  may  not  need  them,  they  are  of  bene- 
fit to  the  weak.  Their  poverty  of  thought  and  of 
feeling,  their  want  of  continuity  of  will,  are  met  in 
that  way ;  and  protracted  meetings  are  thus  great 
blessings. 

How  long  ought  they  to  be  protracted  ?  Just  as  long 
as  you  want  them.  Four-day  meetings  ?  Yes,  four  days, 
or  eight  days,  or  twelve  days,  or  sixteen  days,  or  twenty- 
four  days,  or  forty-eight  days.  You  own  all  the  time 
there  is,  and  you  can  keep  them  up  as  long  as  they 
are  profitable.  Suppose  my  boy  should  come  to  me  and 
ask,  Father,  how  lon^  ou^^ht  I  to  shake  the  chestnut- 
tree  ?"  "  As  long  as  the  chestnuts  fall ;  as  long  as  there 
is  a  chestnut  left,"  I  say  to  him ;  "  shake  till  you  can  get 
no  more  nuts.  As  long  as  they  fall,  club  it."  I  remem- 
ber, in  one  case,  carrying  on  a  protracted  meeting  in  my 
own  parish  for  over  eight,  nine,  ten  weeks ;  and  when, 
on  Sunday  morning,  I  made  up  my  mind  to  close  the 
series  of  meetings,  I  had  looked  over  the  congregation 
and  could  count  but  ten  that  were  not  hopeful  Christians, 
and  they  were  persons  for  whom  I  didn't  believe  it 


292 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


would  be  of  any  use  to  keep  the  meetings  going;  so 
they  were  closed.  But  there  is  no  rule  about  it.  So 
long  as  protracted  meetings  are  useful  and  good,  em- 
ploy them  and  keep  them  up.  As  soon  as  they 
cease  to  be  beneficial,  quit  them ;  use  liberty  and  good 
sense. 

There  are  also  many  things  in  vogue  which  are  good 
in  some  communities  and  not  in  others,  and  are,  in 
fact,  matters  of  taste  and  discretion.  In  some  com- 
munities, it  is  the  custom  to  invite  persons  to  rise  for 
prayer  in  meetings.  I  have  seen  the  very  best  results 
from  that,  yet  I  never  could  do  it  in  my  own  congrega- 
tion. I  have  tried  it  a  few  times,  but  always  in  a  fal- 
tering way.  It  did  not  come  naturally  to  me,  and  it 
did  not  harmonize  with  my  style  of  administration 
from  year  to  year.  Yet  I  have  seen  men  who,  in  times 
of  revival,  had  the  happiest  results  ensue  from  employ- 
ing that  method  of  bringing  people  to  a  decision.  The 
theory  is,  that  there  are  hundreds  and  thousands  of 
persons  floating  about  a  community  who  have  a  certain 
amount  of  moral  sensibility,  but  it  does  not  take  on 
any  form  of  will.  If,  however,  you  can  in  any  way  con- 
centrate that,  and  get  these  persons  to  commit  them- 
selves by  an  avowal,  then  their  pride  and  vanity,  and 
all  their  other  feelings,  will  tend  to  press  them  forward 
in  the  right  way ;  and  so,  by  public  commitment,  they 
are  put  in  a  better  position.  There  is  no  harm  in  it,  when 
it  works  favorably,  and  there  is  no  obligation  attaching 
to  its  use. 

The  same  is  true  of  "  anxious  seats."  A  great  deal 
lias  been  said  against  them.  It  is  a  very  common  prac- 
tice in  Methodist  churches,  and  with  them  it  works 


THE  CONDUCT  OF  REVIVALS. 


293 


extremely  well.  There  is  no  reasonable  objection  to 
them.  But  if  there  is  anything  in  yourself,  anything 
in  the  character  of  your  people,  that  should  make  this 
inexpedient,  you  are  not  bound  to  try  it. 

INQUIRY-MEETINGS. 

Inquiry-meetings  are  of  universal  use,  but  more  in 
New  England  than  anywhere  else.  They  bring  the 
mind  of  the  minister  to  bear  directly  on  a  single  indi- 
vidual mind.  They  are  more  thorough ;  they  explore 
a  man,  they  find  out  his  habits,  they  learn  his  disposi- 
tion, they  apportion  the  truth  exactly  to  his  want. 
Preaching  to  a  whole  congregation  is  very  much  like 
giving,  in  time  of  pestilence,  hygienic  instructions  which 
every  man  must  apply  for  himself;  but  an  inquiry- 
meeting  is  like  the  visit  of  the  physician.  He  takes 
each  man  by  the  pulse,  and  determines  the  medicine 
especially  needed.  I  have  always,  in  my  own  charge, 
dealt  very  largely  in  inquiry-meetings,  frequently  call- 
ing them  after  every  prayer-meeting;  not  disconnect- 
ing them,  not  making  them  formal,  but  saying,  "  If  any 
persons  wish  to  converse  with  me  after  meeting,  I  will 
remain."  And  after  the  Friday-night  meeting,  I  do 
the  same,  making  it  as  little  awful  as  possible ;  mak- 
ing it  social  and  genial  and  inviting ;  winning  people 
to  it. 

CAMP-MEETINGS. 

Camp-meetings  are  scarcely  within  your  probable 
range.  I  believe  in  them.  I  think  they  are  excellent 
in  new  countries,  and  under  certain  circumstances  they 
may  be  employed  in  old  communities.    Still,  they  are 


294 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


not  ordinarily  within  the  habits  of  our  sort  of  people. 
I  have  spent  some  very  blessed  days  in  camp-meetings  ; 
and  no  man  with  poetic  feeling,  an  eye  for  the  sub- 
lime, who  has  seen  a  genuine  camp-meeting,  can  ever 
revile  it.  The  night,  beautiful  in  its  radiance  overhead, 
the  trees  lit  up  with  lamps,  the  songs  of  Zion  sung  by 
three  thousand  people,  the  strange  mingling  of  light  and 
dark  ;  and  after  the  great  meeting  is  over,  and  the  peo- 
ple have  retired  to  their  several  tents,  and  had  family 
prayers,  I  have  lain  in  my  little  bunk  and  heard,  in  the 
night,  six,  eight,  or  ten  little  meetings  going  on  all 
around  me.  One  dies  out,  anotlier  dies  out,  and  anoth- 
er ;  there  are  only  three ;  another  follows,  and  there  are 
only  two  left ;  and  finally,  as  the  last  bell  strikes,  I  hear 
but  one.  After  that,  low  murmurings,  and  then  silence 
comes  down  over  the  great  camp,  and  all  is  still.  I 
think  the  life  is  almost  a  fairy  life.  It  is  enchanting. 
And  yet,  while  it  is  eminently  proper  for  a  sparse  pop- 
ulation in  a  new  country,  and  may  be  used  occasion- 
ally in  old  communities,  it  can  scarcely  come  within 
the  range  of  your  probable  settlements. 

EVANGELISTS. 

Only  a  word  now  on  the  subject  of  evangelists.  In 
general,  in  the  induction  of  a  revival  of  religion,  it  is 
better  that  the  pastor  should  do  his  own  work.  It  is 
a  great  deal  better  for  you  to  be  the  father  and  the 
brother  of  your  people,  and,  taking  the  spirits  that  are 
in  sympathy  with  your  own,  to  do  your  own  visiting, 
get  up  your  ow^n  meetings,  conduct  them,  and  have  the 
domestic  element,  as  it  were,  in  your  own  parish.  If 
you  need  further  force  than  this,  the  next  best  thing 


THE  CONDUCT  OF  REVIVALS. 


295 


is  to  call  in  your  brother  pastors.  There  should  be 
a  fellowship  in  churches  in  this  way,  and  you  should 
have  help  from  those  that  are  congenial.  But  there 
is  no  reason  why,  under  certain  circumstances,  you 
should  not  have  the  help  of  men  who  have  shown  them- 
selves to  be  gifted  by  the  Master  with  a  special  talent 
for  developing  religious  feeling  in  the  community.  But, 
in  the  admission  of  evangelists,  or  revivalists,  all  may 
not  alike  be  useful  to  you.  There  are  many  men  whom 
I  trust,  and  whose  names  will  stand  far  above  mine  in 
heaven,  that  I  would  not  have  in  my  congregation  under 
any  circumstances.  There  is  a  genius  that  belongs  to 
every  church  development  which  has  its  own  individu- 
ality and  peculiarity.  "  But  if  you  introduce  a  revival- 
ist whose  whole  style  of  thought  is  different  from  your 
own,  and  in  antagonism  with  it,  you  will  introduce  a 
discordant  element."  Even  so  ;  but  then  I  would  object 
to  none  because  they  are  evangelists. 

In  the  selection  of  help  of  this  kind,  I  should  say  one 
needs  to  be  very  judicious  in  calling  in  to  his  help  those 
that  are  professional  evangelists  or  revivalists.  I  inces- 
santly develop  in  my  people  hope,  courage,  faith.  I  work 
by  that  myself.  I  have  taught  them  to  work  by  it. 
My  congregation  is  genial  and  cheerful,  and  there  is  an 
atmosphere  there  of  fellowship  and  of  kindliness.  Now 
you  bring  in  a  man  that  preaches  harshly,  and  begins 
to  bear  down  upon  the  conscience  with  that  stern  sense 
of  awful  responsibility,  —  there  would  be  rebellion  in 
the  congregation  ;  you  could  not  hold  them  to  it.  And 
therefore,  although  that  man  might,  in  another  relation, 
be  an  excellent  man,  do  much  good,  and  be  owned  and 
blessed  by  the  Master,  yet  he  is  not  adapted  to  that 


296 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


place.  There  are  a  thousand  wheels  that  are  just  as 
good  wheels  as  any  in  a  certain  watch,  but  the  differ- 
ence of  the  ten  thousandth  part  of  an  inch  would  make 
any  wheel  inappropriate  for  that  particular  watch.  The 
wheels  must  have  a  certain  relation  to  each  other,  or 
they  won't  keep  time.  And  so  of  the  genus  Evange- 
list. There  are  a  good  many  species ;  and  while  it  is 
best  to  do  your  own  work,  or  to  do  it  with  the  help  of 
a  brother  pastor,  still,  if  you  are  obliged  to,  call  in  an 
evangelist,  but  do  not  do  it  at  hap-hazard  ;  call  one 
who  will  work  on  the  same  lines  and  in  harmony 
with  you.  That  will  be  likely  to  help  you;  and  he 
will  probably  leave  your  church  stronger  than  he 
found  it,  and  you  better  rooted  in  the  church  than 
when  he  came. 

QUESTIONS  AND  ANSWERS. 

Q.  Does  not  such  an  evangelist  as  you  have  described  meet 
the  wants  of  some  people  ? 

Mr.  Beecher. — Yes,  sir.  But  then,  suppose  he  meets 
the  wants  of  a  few  at  the  expense  of  a  great  majority  ? 
You  cannot  make  a  net,  you  know,  that  will  catch  trout, 
and  at  the  same  time  be  fit  to  catch  sharks  ;  it  has  to  be 
so  very  thin.  I  do  not  think  that  any  one  adminis- 
tration can  take  every  sort  of  person.  I  think  it  is  to 
the  interest  of  every  Episcopal  church  in  the  com- 
munity that  there  shall  be  a  Congregational  church 
alongside  of  it ;  and  it  is  to  the  interest  of  every  Con- 
gregational church  that  there  shall  be,  in  the  immediate 
vicinity,  a  Presbyterian  or  a  Methodist  church :  that 
thus  elements  may  be  developed  outside  which  will 


THE  CONDUCT  OF  REVIVALS. 


297 


affect  them  beneficially.  My  dear  old  father  used  to 
think  that  it  was  his  interest  to  keep  out  all  churches 
except  his  own  from  Litchfield.  The  moment  he  found 
a  Methodist  was  getting  up  a  fire,  he  would  go  and  put 
his  foot  on  it.  And  I  heard  him  say,  in  the  exuberance 
qf  his  zeal  about  it,  "  Why  !  when  I  heard  the  Metho- 
dists were  getting  in,  in  such  a  district,  I  would  go 
over  there  and  I  would  preach  so  much  better  than 
they  could,  that  they  couldn't  carry  their  meetings 
along  ! "  Well,  that  was  about  the  spirit  of  that  time. 
If  I  had  my  choice,  I  would  never  have,  in  any  com- 
munity, less  than  one  good  representative  of  each  of  the 
various  forms  in  which  churches  develop  themselves  ; 
no  church  can  develop  all  sides.  And  so  we  get  from 
the  formular  worship  of  the  hierarchical  churches  some 
elements  in  the  direction  of  veneration  and  taste,  tliat 
we  do  not  and  cannot  very  well  develop  in  our  con- 
gregational churches.  On  the  other  hand,  there  are 
certain  enthusiastic  social  elements  that  are  developed 
by  the  Methodists:  there  is  a  royal  —  jollity,  shall  I 
say? — a  heartiness  among  them,  that  it  is  very  hard 
to  get  in  a  Presbyterian  church.  But  there  is  an  in- 
tellectualization,  and  a  certain  element  of  righteous- 
ness and  ethicalness,  in  Congregational  and  Presby- 
terian churches  that  is  pre-eminently  fundamental  in 
a  community.  And  if  this  view  of  the  church  as 
the  body  of  Christ,  and  all  the  individual  churches 
parts  thereof  with  various  powers  and  functions, — 
just  as  a  single  church  is  represented  as  one  man, 
with  members  carrying  different  gifts,  —  if  this  view 
might  prevail,  sectarianism  would  be  disarmed  of 
its  sting. 


298 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


Q.  Don't  you  think  it  is  necessary  to  bring  men  to  a  decision 
in  regard  to  the  subject  of  religion  ? 

Mr.  Beecher.  —  Certainly  it  is.  But  decisions,  you 
know,  are  very  different  things  with  different  people. 
Decisions  take  place  in  connection  with  different  facul- 
ties. A  person  with  very  large  conscientiousness  and 
self-esteem  would  come  to  a  decision  that  would  meet 
together  with  a  snap  you  could  hear  all  over  town  ! 
But,  take  a  person  who  lacks  in  those  elements,  and 
who  is  genial  and  gentle,  and  he  will  decide  as  clouds 
do,  —  that  change  their  form  in  a  rosy,  round-edged,  soft, 
flushy  way.  You  must  remember  that  decision  takes 
on  a  great  many  different  forms ;  but,  somehow  or 
other,  everybody  must  be  brought  to  the .  point  of 
decision.  There  are  some  men  who  decide  as  an  engine 
flies  the  track,  and  there  are  others  who  go  off  on 
switches,  but  keep  to  the  track.  There  is  every  pos- 
sible variation. 

Q.  Don't  you  think  that  a  revival  has  a  tendency  to  bring  men 
to  a  quick  and  rapid  decision  ? 

Mr.  Beecher.  —  Yes,  sir. 

Q.  What  is  the  philosophy,  or  reason,  or  cause,  of  that  ? 

Mr.  Beecher. —  The  reason  is  very  plain,  —  that  you 
are  causing  everything  to  converge  to  that  very  end. 
That  is  the  thing  you  are  exerting  your  whole  influ- 
ence for.  You  have  indoctrinated  them ;  they  have 
learned  their  duty;  they  have  learned  moral  govern- 
ment ;  they  have  learned  a  thousand  truths.    Now  you 


THE  CONDUCT  OF  REVIVALS. 


299 


take  all  the  elements  tliat  they  have  been  gaining 
through  your  pastorate,  and  by  your  instructive  preach- 
ing, and  concentrate  these  upon  them.  This  reminds 
me  of  the  first  sermon  I  ever  preached  that  I  felt  did  any 
good  at  the  time.  I  was  in  despair,  at  Lawrenceburg. 
I  could  preach  to  interested  hearers.  I  hoped  that  i 
instructed  them  in  some  measure,  but  I  never  could 
carry  the  congregation  beyond  a  certain  degree  of  ex- 
citement. In  the  West,  they  always  had  two  or  three 
days  of  preaching  before  a  communion  season.  By  tlie 
preaching,  in  the  preparatory  days,  the  interest  would 
grow  and  deepen,  and  the  people  would  become  intense, 
and  come  on  the  Sabbath  day  to  partake  of  the  com- 
munion of  the  Lord's  Supper  ;  but  by  Monday,  it  had 
all  gone  out  again,  and  there  was  nothing  left.  I 
would  think  the  church  w^as  getting  on  its  legs  to 
march,  and  it  would  fall  flat  again.    I  sent  out  for 

Dr.  ,  and  asked  him  if  he  would  not  come  down 

and  help  me,  but  he  could  not.  I  sent  up  for  father, 
and  asked  him  if  he  w^ould  n't  come  down,  and  he 
said,  "  No,  you  must  find  out,  yourself."  I  went  over 
there  to  Indianapolis,  and  my  heart  burned  within 
me.  I  could  not  be  preaching  for  nothing.  I  deter- 
mined to  sit  down  and  study  how  the  Apostles  did  it ; 
for,  though  I  was  not  an  apostle,  I  thought  possibly  I 
could  do  something,  in  some  way,  according  to  my  size 
and  shape.  I  took  the  book  of  Acts,  and  studied  Pe- 
ter's sermon  on  the  day  of  Pentecost.  I  analyzed  it,  I 
looked  at  it  all  the  way  through,  I  formed  a  theory  of 
the  way  in  which  the  effect  was  produced,  and  I  then 
constructed  a  sermon,  —  not  of  the  same  material,  be- 
cause Peter  was  preaching  to  a  Jewish  audience  and  I 


300 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


was  preaching  to  Hoosiers,  —  but  I  constructed  a  ser- 
mon on  the  same  principle,  as  I  understood  it.  I  was 
preaching  in  the  hall  of  a  little  academy  that  would  hold 
a  hundred  or  a  hundred  and  fifty  people.  The  legisla- 
ture was  in  session,  and  a  good  many  lawyers  and  pub- 
lic men  were  there.  I  went  down,  on  Sunday  morning, 
as  anxious  as  a  boy  with  a  new  gun  would  be  to  try  and 
see  how  it  would  shoot.  I  fired  my  sermon,  and  there 
were  about  ten  men  awakened.  If  there  was  ever  any- 
body delighted,  I  was.  I  had  learned  how  to  preach.  I 
said  to  myself,  "  I  have  got  the  knack  of  aiming  now ; 
I  know  what  to  do."  Well,  the  trouble  was,  that, 
though  I  had  preached  that  sermon  of  that  sort,  I  had 
materials  to  preach  but  one  or  two  more,  and  then  I  ran 
out.  But  I  had  got  the  ideal,  after  all,  —  the  sense  of 
aiming  at  certain  points,  and  carrying  them  by  tlie 
direct  application  of  the  truth.  That  was  everything  to 
me.  My  horizon  enlarged  and  enlarged,  so  that  by  and 
by  I  came  into  the  possession  of  my  profession,  so  far  as 
I  have  ever  attained  it. 

Q.  You  have  said  a  good  deal  to  make  us  feel  very  kindly 
towards  all  denominations,  and  to  make  us  feel  that  it  is  very 
consistent  to  have  a  good  many  of  them  ;  but  how  do  you  get 
along  with  the  fact  that  in  so  many  of  our  towns,  East  and 
West,  especially  West,  every  denomination  considers  it  its  duty  to 
be  represented,  as  much  as  if  there  were  not  any  other  denomina- 
tion there,  and  so  they  all  hecome  weak  ? 

Mr.  Beecher.  — Yes,  that  is  a  misfortune  that  ought 
to  be  striven  against  as  far  as  possible.  I  know  we  had 
sixteen  denominational  churches  in  a  population  of 
four  thousand,  in  Indianapolis. 


THE  CONDUCT  OF  REVIVALS. 


301 


Q.  Did  you  consider  that  too  much  of  a  good  thing  ? 

Mr.  Beecher.  —  I  did  consider  it  a  great  deal  too 
much,  but  it  did  not  argue  that  a  little  was  not  good. 
I  think  that,  in  making  a  sandwich,  a  little  mustard 
improves  it ;  but  I  would  not  put  in  a  quart. 


XI. 


BRINGING  MEN  TO  CHRIST. 


PURPOSE,  this  afternoon,  to  confine  my 
remarks  principally  to  the  consideration  of 
what  may  be  called  the  clinical  practice 
in  revivals,  or  the  treatment  of  cases  as 


they  arise.  As  nearly  as  I  can  judge,  there  has  grad- 
ually come  to  be,  in  our  time,  a  very  great  difference  in 
the  way  in  which  persons  in  whom  religious  sensibility 
has  been  developed  are  treated,  as  compared  with  the 
custom  that  prevailed  twenty-five,  and  still  more  fifty 
years  ago.  I  have  no  doubt  that  if  the  venerable  and 
noble  ministers  who  lived  in  those  times  were  to  stand 
by  now,  retaining  their  views,  and  look  upon  the  de- 
velopment of  Christian  character  as  it  takes  place  in 
intelligent  churches  and  under  intelligent  ministra- 
tions, they  would  think  the  world  was  coming  to 
an  end  ;  and  that  men  were  being  converted  entirely 
out  of  the  proper  way ;  and  that  the  church  was  likely 
to  be  filled  up  with  material  feeble  in  spiritual  life. 

And  yet,  on  the  other  hand,  I  think  none  can  deny 
the  fact,  that  never  before  at  any  period  were  the 
churches  possessed  of  so  many  members  of  so  high  a 


BRINGING  MEN  TO  CHRIST. 


303 


type  of  piety ;  and  never  was  piety  based  upon  better, 
clearer  knowledge  ;  and  never  did  Christian  emotion 
so  co-operate  with  Christian  activity  as  in  our  time. 

While,  then,  it  would  seem  that  the  technical  pro- 
cesses with  which  men  are  treated  have  suffered  great 
change,  the  result  of  those  processes  in  the  hands  of  the 
Christian  ministry  in  our  day  is  the  production  of  a 
higher  type  of  Christian  character,  not  in  individuals, 
but  in  communities. 

I  purpose  to  consider  the  phenomena  of  conviction 
of  sin  and  of  conversion,  of  the  obtaining,  in  the  old 
language,  of  a  "  hope  "  ;  and  of  the  various  experiences 
that  stand  connected  with  these  things. 

THE  OLD  AND  THE  NEW  PRACTICE. 

I  admit  freely  that  there  is  no  such  attempt  now 
made,  that  there  are  no  such  lessons  in  w^orking  with 
respect  to  the  promotion  of  conviction,  its  depth  and 
its  continuity,  as  prevailed  in  earlier  days.  In  work- 
ing, it  will  be  found  that  you  cannot  control  things, 
that  they  will  have  their  own  way ;  that  one  class  of 
your  hearers  will  develop  moral  sensibility  in  one  de- 
gree, another  class  in  another  degree  ;  and  they  will 
assume  aspects  so  different  that  the  contrast  between 
the  extreme  cases  at  the  two  ends  of  the  scale  will 
make  it  seem  as  if  only  one  could  be  right  and  the 
other  must  necessarily  be  wrong.  There  has  always 
been  an  effort  to  countervail  this.  That  is,  there  has 
been  a  theory  that,  in  conviction  and  conversion  and 
the  entering  upon  the  Christian  life,  there  are  cer- 
tain great  marks  common  to  all ;  and  therefore  there 
has  been  an  attempt  made  to  bring  men  up  to  certain 


304 


tests,  and  to  compress,  as  it  were,  experiences  into 
certain  molds ;  to  prevent  elasticity  and  liberty  of 
being,  if  one  itiay  so  say.  Or,  as  I  have  been  accus- 
tomed to  say,  the  old-school  men  refuse  to  allow  God 
his  own  sovereignty  in  the  way  of  convicting  and  con- 
verting men,  but  insist  that  the  sovereignty  should  be 
exercised  according  to  certain  prescribed  patterns,  de- 
duced from  experience.  It  will  not  be  difficult  for  men 
of  a  certain  moral  organization,  that  is,  men  organized  so 
as  to  be  susceptible  in  religious  directions,  who  have 
been  under  continuous  religious  culture,  who  are  appre- 
hensive of  the  truth,  candid,  fair,  —  it  ought  not  to  be 
difficult  to  produce  in  such  men,  and  that,  too,  by  very 
slight  and  gentle  means,  all  the  conviction  of  sin  that 
is  necessary,  all  that  is  of  any  use.  On  the  other 
hand,  persons  of  a  torpid  disposition,  slow  of  thought, 
not  easy  to  move  in  their  emotions  and  inward  life, 
will  require  a  pressure  far  greater.  So  it  falls  out  in 
preaching,  continually,  that  sermons  which  are  adapted 
to  rouse  the  lethargic  and  torpid  overact  upon  those 
that  are  sensitive  and  mercurial  ;  and  that  allowances 
and  explanations  and  concessions  which  are  strictly 
right,  as  adapted  to  more  sensitive  and  advanced  na- 
tures, are  taken  advantage  of  by  those  lower  down ; 
so  that,  in  dealing  with  men,  there  is  no  one  single 
way.  There  is  to  be  incessant  adaptation  to  the  in- 
dividuals, or,  in  large  communities,  to  the  classes,  into 
w^hich  individuals  fall. 

The  character  of  conviction  of  sin  will  very  largely 
depend  upon  the  theology  which  you  preach.  If  you 
preach  the  theology  of  Dr.  Emmons,  you  may  expect 
several  results.    The  first  is  that  you  will  lose  most  of 


BRIJsGING  MEN  TO  CHRIST. 


your  congregation ;  secondly,  those  who  remain  will 
be  very  hard  and  stubborn  ;  and,  thirdly,  when  con- 
viction does  come,  it  will  come  like  the  rushing  of  a 
mighty  wind,  like  a  tornado,  like  an  earthquake,  break- 
ing up  the  foundations  of  things.  The  results  will  be 
in  some  such  proportion  all  the  way  through. 

If  you  preach  the  higher  forms  of  Calvinism,  if  you 
represent  God  as  he  is  represented  in  what  is  called 
hyper-Calvinism,  a  congregation  will  stand  it  and  hear 
you  through  ;  and  if  you  bring  men  into  such  a  state 
that  they  feel  guilty  for  not  loving  such  a  God,  though 
it  may  take  a  good  deal  of  time,  yet  when  the  result 
does  come  on,  it  will  be  something  terrible,  and  will 
very  nearly  break  up  the  foundations  of  moral  con- 
sciousness, very  nearly  take  away  a  man's  reason.  If, 
however,  a  milder  type  —  ordinarily  considered  the  New 
England  type  of  Calvinism  —  be  presented,  so  that 
God  is  represented  as  supremely  just,  not  upon  im- 
possible conditions,  or  conditions  so  extraordinary  as 
scarcely  to  come  within  the  range  of  human  compre- 
hension or  feeling ;  if  you  represent  the  administration 
of  the  universe  as  in  the  hands  of  God,  who  maintains 
for  the  welfare  of  all  a  system  of  righteous  law%  who 
deals  with  men  in  such  a  way  as  to  address  himself  to 
their  reason  and  moral  consciousness,  —  it  ought  not  to 
be  either  a  long  process,  or  an  exaggerating  process. 
That  is,  feeling  ought  not  to  be  driven  to  such  wild 
extremes  in  the  process  of  satisfying  men  that  they 
are  guilty  for  disobedience  to  such  a  God  and  to  such 
laws. 

In  general,  the  more  the  element  of  coercive  gentle- 
ness —  if  I  may  say  so  —  the  element  of  paternity,  the 

T 


S06 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


element  of  Divine  love,  is  preached,  the  milder  will  be 
the  type  of  conviction,  but  the  more  efficacious,  the 
more  rapid  in  its  workings,  and  the  more  rich  and 
beneficent  in  its  residts.  Let  me  guard  you,  however, 
against  supposing  that  the  infusion  of  a  larger 
element  of  love  in  the  Divine  character,  with  a  less 
element  of  justice,  will  work  beneficially.  I  would 
not  be  understood  to  teach  that  the  Divine  love  is  that 
vague  and  colorless  good-nature  and  kindness  which 
some  suppose.  In  my  thought,  love  carries  in  itself 
the  highest  truth  and  the  highest  justice,  and  the  most 
absolute  requisitions  of  right  and  duty ;  and  it  carries 
both  justice  and  truth  in  the  spirit  of  love.  The  at- 
mosphere differs  ;  the  elements  remain  the  same. 

DIVERSE  PERSONAL  ELEMENTS. 

The  variety  of  cases  which  occur  under  pungent  and 
faithful  personal,  applicatory  preaching,  is  very  great. 
I  cannot  attempt  to  mention  all,  but  will  take  some  of 
the  more  common  and  conspicuous.  There  will  hardly 
be  two  persons  awakened  alike.  You  must  not  expect 
it.  Take,  for  example,  the  awakening  of  children.  How 
impossible  it  is  for  a  child  to  be  affected  with  any  such 
sensibility,  or  any  such  introspect  or  retrospect,  or 
any  such  burden  of  conscience,  as  belong  to  an  adult, 
who  has  gone  through  life  organizing  selfishness,  culti- 
vating passions !  The  child  knows  none  of  these 
things.  You  can  say  to  a  child,  ''You  are  a  great 
sinner  before  God,"  and  it  trembles  ;  here  is  some  vague 
mystery,  it  does  not  know  what.  You  can  w^ork  upon 
its  sensibility,  and  teach  it  that  it  must  give  up  its  heart 
to  Christ ;  and  it  may  in  a  helpless  way  lift  its  little 


BRINGING  xMEN  TO  CHEIST. 


307 


hands  and  try  to  deliver  itself  up  to  the  Lord  Jesus 
Christ,  and  by  and  by  be  told  that  it  now  may  be  happy, 
having  passed  through  all  the  stages.  Who  that  looks 
into  the  heart  and  reads  things  as  they  are  does  not 
see  what  a  work  has  been  wrought  upon  that  sensitive 
nature  ?  But  the  child  that  has  had  no  life^  whose 
experience  is  nearly  nothing,  how  can  you  expect  a 
manly  disposition  to  be  developed  in  that  ?  It  is  said 
that  jugglers  in  India  will  take  an  acorn  and  extempor- 
ize a  tree  before  your  eyes.  That  may  be  done  by  jug- 
glery, with  a  seed ;  but  in  childhood  you  cannot  de- 
velop a  virile  experience. 

Among  the  mature,  conviction  will  generally  vary 
with  the  disposition.  In  one  class  reason  will  be  pre- 
dominant, because  that  is  the  structure  of  their  mind. 
Another  class  will  not  reason  much,  but  they  will  be 
chiefly  influenced  by  emotion,  because  that  is  the 
structure  of  their  nature.  Some  persons  will  have  a 
light  playing  about  their  conceptions  of  right  and 
wrong,  which  shows  that  they  have  the  element  of 
imagination  largely  developed,  and  they  get  the  view 
which  imagination  alone  enables  the  reason  to  give 
of  moral  qualities,  of  right  and  wrong,  of  the  present 
and  of  the  future. 

DEGREES  OF  INTENSITY. 

All  these  elements  you  will  find  developed  under 
any  searching  ministry.  Their  intensity  will  depend 
upon  the  constitution  of  a  man's  mind  and  upon  the 
history  of  his  life.  I  should  suppose,  for  instance,  that 
a  man  with  a  slow  and  torpid  moral  sense  never  could 
arrive  at  any  vivid  convictions.    The  Divine  Spirit 


308 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


that  shines  alike  upon  all  the  earth  does  not  make 
all  things  upon  the  earth  alike  beautiful;  nor  does 
it  change  the  inertness  and  sleep  in  all  plants  at  the 
same  time ;  nor  does  it  produce  a  like  development  in 
all.  So  the  Divine  influence,  working  through  the  truth 
that  falls  upon  the  human  heart;  acts  according  to  the 
laws  of  that  human  heart,  and  men  that  are  slow  of 
belief,  slow  of  intelligence,  torpid  of  feeling,  will  come 
up  but  a  little  way  comparatively.  If  you  wait  for  them 
to  develop  paroxysmal  feeling,  if  you  have  an  impres- 
sion that  no  man  can  come  into  the  kingdom  of  God 
unless  he  comes  in  with  a  sweep  and  a  whirlwind  of 
experience,  you  will  find  yourself  overmatched  perpetu- 
ally, and  you  will  do  one  of  two  things  ;  you  will  either 
throw  them  back  in  despair  upon  the  world,  or  else 
lead  them  to  simulate  an  experience,  so  that  they  will 
unintentionally,  bat  really,  come  in  upon  a  false  basis. 
Understand  that  every  man  will  have  an  experience 
corresponding  to  his  organization  and  his  nature.  In 
some  there  will  be  very  little  feeling,  slowly  educed  ; 
in  others,  very  much  ;  and,  as  respects  that,  one  may  be 
just  as  good  as  the  other. 

The  wickedness  —  that  is,  the  overt  wickedness — of 
a  man's  life  will  also  have  much  to  do  with  his  sense 
of  conviction.  I  mean  that  conscience  is  largely  formed 
by  the  public  institutions  of  society,  by  what  prevails 
in  the  domestic  circle,  by  what  are  understood  to  be 
the  civic  virtues  ;  and  a  man  whose  conscience  is  not 
merely  instructed  from  the  pulpit,  but  has  also  been 
formed  in  civil  affairs  and  social  relations,  will  have  an 
experience  the  proportions  and  character  of  which  will 
be  taken  somewhat  from  this  education.    So,  if  a  man 


BRINGING  MEN  TO  CHRIST. 


309 


has  been  a  drunkard,  a  licentious  man,  a  thief,  a  pirate, 
or  a  liar,  and  has  come  home  and  been  brought  under 
the  power  of  religious  teaching,  and  has  something  of 
manly  nature  yet  left  in  him,  —  when  the  truth  falls 
on  that  man,  you  might  well  suppose  that  he  would 
have  a  concrete  conviction  of  sin  ;  a  conviction  that  he 
is  a  desperate  sinner.  But  his  idea  of  a  desperate  sin- 
ner would  not  be  that  he  had  broken  the  law  of  God, 
but  that  he  was  a  liar,  that  he  was  a  robber,  or  a  pirate, 
or  a  lewd  man,  or  a  drunkard.  It  would  fasten  itself 
upon  some  of  those  physical,  external  forms  of  sin ;  and 
while  you  might  attempt,  by  and  by,  to  enlarge  his 
view,  it  would  not  be  best  to  do  it  before  you  had 
brought  him  forward  into  a  Christian  life. 

PRACTICAL  INFLUENCES  TO  BE  USED. 

While,  however,  I  say  that  you  should  accept  the 
development  as  it  comes,  in  respect  to  the  general 
character  and  in  respect  to  its  depth  and  strength,  let 
me  also  say  that  there  is  an  interference  which  you  can 
practice,  a  guidance  which  you  can  effectually  furnish. 
You  can  do  it  by  personal  intercourse  with  your  people. 
You  can  do  it,  but  not  very  well,  by  general  preaching. 
For  example,  you  will  find  in  a  very  large  class  of  easy- 
going people,  ordinarily  well  doing,  according  to  the 
current  opinions  of  society,  a  state  of  moral  feeling  that 
is  susceptible  of  great  excitement.  You  preach  to  them 
the  Divine  law  and  the  claims  of  God  upon  them,  show 
them  that  they  have  been  great  sinners  against  holiness, 
and  they  will  all  begin  to  feel  that  they  sinned  in  Adam 
and  that  they  have  sinned  since  Adam.  They  feel  that 
they  are  very  guilty  and  need  change  of  heart,  and  they 


310 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


will  put  you  off  with  that.  Now,  if  a  woman  is  a  ter- 
magant, you  must  make  her  conceptions  of  sin  include 
that  element.  If  a  man  is  cold,  hard,  proud,  it  will  not 
do  for  him  to  confess  Adam's  sin,  nor  any  of  the  generic 
sins.  His  sense  of  sin  must  cover  his  particular  dispo- 
sition. If  you  find  a  man  notoriously  stingy,  mean,  and 
avaricious,  no  matter  if  he  shakes  in  convulsions  for  his 
sins  against  God,  that  man  must  have  his  convictions 
kept  down  until  he  comes  to  the  question  of  avarice. 
In  short,  generic  conviction,  instead  of  personal  con- 
viction, will  not  answer  ;  and  it  is  part  of  your  business 
to  produce  the  latter.  If  you  care  to  have  men  really 
changed,  if  there  is  to  be  something  more  than  eccle- 
siastical translation,  if  there  is  to  be  a  personal  reno- 
vation, by  which  a  nature  is  to  be  sweetened  into 
benevolence,  by  which  a  sodden  and  sordid  nature  is 
to  be  exalted  into  some  of  the  elements  of  nobility,  by 
which  a  coarse  and  physical  nature  is  to  reach  up  into 
spiritual  realms, —  you  must  search  out  men  and 
make  them  search  themselves,  and  find  out  where 
there  is  too  much  or  too  little ;  and  their  sense  of  sin 
must  be  brought  personally  home  to  them,  so  that  all 
these  elements  shall  be  distinctly  in  their  consciousness, 
when  they  make  their  submission  or  choice  before  God. 
That  brings  matters  to  a  practical  reality,  and  into  such 
a  form  that  you  will  avoid,  or  tend  to  avoid,  bringing 
men  into  the  church  under  strong  general  impressions, 
who,  after  all,  have  not  changed  materially  in  those 
individual  elements  of  character  that  fashion  their 
life. 


BRINGING  MEN  TO  CHRIST. 


311 


THE  APOSTOLIC  THEORY. 

The  question  is  not  an  unimportant  one  :  How  thor- 
ough ought  convictions  of  sin  to  be  ?  And  that  leads 
me  to  say  that  there  seems  to  have  been,  in  times  past, 
an  impression  that  a  conversion  was  more  thorough  in 
proportion  to  the  depth,  if  I  may  say  so,  or  quantity  of 
feeling  which  had  been  expended  in  the  beginning,  and 
that  the  conversion  was  probably  a  shallow  one  in 
wliich  a  man  had  not  felt  immensely  and  intensely. 

I  remember  very  well  the  time  when  four  or  five 
w^eeks  was  a  moderate  term  for  a  man  to  go  under  con- 
viction of  sin.  I  remember  when  it  was  supposed  that 
general  attention  would  occupy  a  week  or  ten  days,  and 
then  would  come  seriousness,  which  would  occupy  sev- 
eral days  more ;  then  convictions  of  sin  in  their  lighter 
form  would  come,  and  at  last  wrestling  convictions,  and, 
finally,  the  crisis ;  and  if,  in  my  childhood,  a  man  was 
converted  in  four  weeks,  it  was  almost  thought  an  in- 
sufficient time.  It  was  against  such  notions  as  those 
that  my  father  used  to  contend.  He  was,  in  some  sense, 
a  reformer  in  those  matters. 

On  the  other  hand,  when  we  go  clear  back  to  the 
apostolic  age,  we  find  men  gathered  together  in  great 
crowds,  receiving  the  truth,  and  under  a  single  sermon 
breaking  down  and  crying  out,  "  What  shall  we  do  to 
be  saved  ? "  and  before  they  departed  becoming  so 
transformed  that  the  Apostles  considered  them  worthy 
of  church-membership. 

Here,  then,  are  the  two  extremes.  In  the  first 
preaching  of  Christianity,  it  was  understood  that  when 
a  man's  character  and  condition  were  clearly  presented 


312 


LECTUKES  ON  PREACHING. 


before  him,  and  the  question  of  his  adhesion  to  Christ 
was  pressed  upon  him,  he  had  it  in  his  power  to  deter- 
mine then  and  there,  and  if  his  determination  was 
right,  and  was  carried  into  practice,  the  feeling  that  led 
to  it  wsi8  enough.  In  the  old  New  England  practice,  the 
impression  w^as  that  a  long-continued,  but  especially  a 
deep  and  thorough,  conviction  of  sin  w  as  very  desirable. 

CHANGE  OF  LIFE  THE  REAL  AIM. 

What,  after  all,  is  the  object  of  sorrow  ?  What  is 
the  use  of  it  ?  AVhat  is  the  use  of  pain,  when  we  break 
a  law  ?  To  briug  us  back  into  obedience  to  law ; 
simply  to  rectify  that  which  created  the  sorrow  ;  and 
to  produce  such  an  impression  upon  the  memory  that 
we  shall  not  be  likely  to  transgress  again.  Sorrow  is 
not  like  a  dye-vat,  in  w^hich  a  man  ought  to  lie  over- 
night in  order  to  bring  him  a  conviction  of  sin.  If  a 
captain  wishes  to  leave  port,  and  the  wind  is  blowing  ten 
miles  an  hour,  he  heaves  up  the  anchor,  for  this  is 
enough  to  get  him  far  out  of  port.  If  he  gets  out  on  a 
breeze  of  ten  miles  an  hour,  it  is  as  good  as  if  he  went 
out  on  one  of  twenty.  If  it  requires  twenty  pounds  of 
steam  to  w^ork  an  engine  properly,  then  all  above  that 
is  waste.  Every  grain  of  powder  beyond  what  is  ne- 
cessary to  throw  a  ball  where  you  want  it  to  go  is 
superfluous.  And  every  particle  of  feeling  you  expend 
of  this  kind,  —  regretful,  sorrowful,  remorseful,  all  that 
strange  medley  of  emotion,  and  all  that  which  we  do 
not  now  analyze,  which  goes  to  constitute  what  is  called 
conviction  of  sin,  —  the  elements  of  reason,  of  imagi- 
nation, of  memory,  —  all  the  various  sensibilities  that 
play  and  interplay ;  of  all  this,  every  particle  you  ex- 


BKINGING  MEN  TO  CHKIST. 


313 


pend  more  than  just  enough  to  m^ke  a  man  say,  "  I  am 
wrong,  I  will  do  right,"  is  unnecessary.  Just  so  soon 
as  you  get  enough  feeling  to  bring  about  the  change, 
you  have  accomplished  your  purpose.  Everything  more 
is  so  much  surplusage. 

DIFFERENCES  OF  DISPOSITION. 

This  is  an  important  consideration,  because,  in  the 
first  place,  there  are  many  persons  who  are  thought  not 
to  be  safe  Christians,  because  they  are  mild,  gentle,  and 
not  liable  to  strong  feeling  of  any  kind.  I  recollect  an 
elder  in  my  church  in  Indianapolis,  when  I  was  a  Pres- 
byterian, whose  whole  life,  I  think,  never  had  an  inch 
of  undulation  in  it.  I  think  he  would  smile  gently 
wdien  he  married  his  wife.  I  think  he  would  smile 
gently  when  he  buried  her.  He  possessed  a  perfectly 
even,  tranquil  nature.  Now  the  idea  that  this  man 
should  be  convulsed  with  any  feeling  was  absurd.  And 
when  he  came  into  the  church  he  said,  "  I  don't  remem- 
ber that  I  have  ever  had  any  exercise  of  feeling  " ;  and 
persons  were  rather  slow  to  receive  him.  Some  men 
thought  there  should  be  more  exercise  of  feeling.  Still, 
he  was  one  of  the  best  of  men  I  ever  had  in  the  church, 
although  he  glided  in  almost  without  emotion.  Spring 
came,  in  his  case,  without  any  breaking  up  and  freshets 
and  storms. 

On  the  other  hand,  there  are  many  persons  whose 
consciences  are  never  satisfied.  They  hear  a  man  tell 
how  the  Lord  led  him  into  the  kingdom  with  terrible 
manifestations  of  feeling  and  with  anguish  and  suffer- 
ing ;  how,  when  he  w^ent  into  a  monthly  meeting  where 
a  revival  was  going  on,  conviction  struck  him  and  he 

VOL.   II.  14 


314 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


went  home  ;  how  he  could  find  no  rest,  how  he  could  not 
attend  to  his  business,  he  was  so  wretched ;  how  he 
kept  it  from  his  wife  for  a  week,  and  by  and  by  such 
anguish  and  agony  came  that  he  could  not  eat  or  sleep, 
and  it  seemed  to  him  that  soul  and  body  would  be  rent 
asunder ;  how  he  prayed  and  prayed,  and  at  last,  as  he 
prayed,  he  saw  a  vision  as  a  light  in  the  heavens,  and 
he  called  out,  0  Lord !  0  Lord  ! "  —  and  there  was  a 
terrible  wrestling,  and  something  seemed  to  flood  him 
with  the  glow  of  peace,  and  he  came  out  of  his  darkness 
and  began  to  cry,  ''Hallelujah!  hallelujah!"  and  was 
so  happy !  Now,  all  that  is  genuine.  It  is  genuine 
for  him ;  not  for  me,  not  for  you.  But  a  man  hears 
this,  —  a  man  who  has  been  endeavoring  to  walk  hon- 
estly with  God  and  honestly  with  men ;  wlio  really  has 
the  spiritual  life  developed  in  him ;  whose  soul  domi- 
nates his  body ;  who  is  disinterested,  and  is  always  work- 
ing upward  toward  higher  and  higher  degrees  of  excel- 
lence, and  never  has  had  this  dramatic  experience,  this 
pictorial  conviction  of  sin ;  with  whom,  indeed,  it  has 
always  been  a. matter  of  doubt  whether  he  was  really 
converted  or  not,  —  and  he  says,  If  I  had  only  had 
that,  I  should  feel  that  I  had  a  ticket,  a  pass  that  would 
hd  valid." 

CONVICTION  ONLY  A  MEANS  TO  CONVERSION. 

A  man  who  sleeps  on  the  ground-floor  of  a  tene- 
ment house  is  roused  in  the  night  by  the  cry  of  fire. 
He  springs  up,  gathers  his  wife  and  children  about 
him,  attempts  to  rush  down  the  main  hall- way,  and 
meets  the  flames  coming  up.  Beaten  there,  he  runs  to 
the  rear  stairs,  —  up  comes  the  bulging  smoke.  He 


BRINGING  MEN  TO  CHRIST. 


315 


flies  to  the  next  story,  and  after  him  comes  the  flame, 
roaring  and  crackling  at  his  heels.  From  story  to  story 
he  runs,  until  he  is  driven  to  the  roof,  while  all  below 
him  is  a  sea  of  flame.  He  is  about  to  give  up,  and  feels, 
"  I  am  a  dead  man,  and  my  household  are  lost ! "  when 
a  voice  from  the  gable  hails  him.  A  ladder  is  thrown 
up.  He  hands  over  his  children  and  his  wife,  and 
finally  he  himself  gets  down  and  escapes.  Everybody 
congratulates  him.  "  Wonderful  escape  ! "  —  and  so  it 
was  a  wonderful  escape.  No  wonder  he  remembers  it. 
And  so  he  is  narrating  it ;  and  a  young  man  says,  I 
slept  on  the  ground-floor  in  that  building,  and  when 
the  engines  came  thundering  along,  I  jumped  up  and 
dressed  myself,  got  all  my  clothes  and  valuables,  and 
quietly  walked  out  at  the  lower  door  and  went  away. 
But  if  that  man's  experience  is  called  escaping,  I  fear  I 
have  not  escaped  ! " 

So  it  is  in  respect  to  changes  that  are  produced  in 
men's  minds.  The  point  is  this,  —  that  a  man  shall 
be  born  again  ;  that  there  shall  be  a  new  arrangement, 
if  I  may  say  so,  a  crystallizing  of  particles,  a  transfor- 
mation which  consists  in  the  shifting  of  sovereignty  from 
the  bottom  of  the  head  to  the  top.  Whereas,  before, 
the  animal  spirit  ruled  the  man,  now,  through  Jesus 
Christ  and  the  inspiration  of  the  Holy  Ghost,  all  the  » 
upper  part  of  a  man's  nature  is  vitalized,  comes  into 
dominancy,  and  controls  the  lower.  And  whatever 
process,  whether  long  or  short,  with  visions  or  without 
them,  with  literalness  or  imaginativeness,  with  deep  or 
little  feeling,  —  whatever  brings  a  man  into  that  condi- 
tion, is  enough.  For  conviction  of  sin  is  cause  merely. 
If  it  produces  effect,  that  is  all  you  want ;  all  the  ex- 
aggerating conception  is  needless. 


316 


LECTUKES  ON  PKEACHING. 


PRESENT  CHRIST  AS  THE  STANDARD. 

Then,  if  that  be  the  object  of  conviction  of  sin,  of 
course  all  your  preaching  will  tend  to  the  development, 
the  measuring,  of  a  man's  character,  so  that  he  shall  be 
able  to  determine  continually  that  he  is  sinful.  You 
will,  in  other  words,  hold  out  the  standard  of  life,  — 
not  an  exaggerated  one,  or  an  ideal  or  imaginative  one, 
but  a  real  standard  of  life  in  Christ  Jesus,  as  laid  down 
in  the  New  Testament.  Measure  a  man  within  and 
without,  his  understanding,  his  sensibilities ;  hold  this 
measure  up  before  him  with  such  continual  appeals  to 
his  practical  knowledge  of  himself  that  he  will  come 
to  the  conviction  that  he  is  altogether  sinful.  When 
I  say  altogether  sinful,"  I  do  not  mean  total  de- 
pravity, a  very  infelicitous  phrase,  framed  under  a  phi- 
losophy in  w^hich  we  do  not  believe,  the  technicalities 
of  which  we  should  abandon.  But  I  believe  there  is 
not  a  single  faculty  in  a  man's  nature  that  does  not 
sin.  I  believe  in  the  correlation  of  faculties.  They  are 
all  put  into  false  relations  with  each  other  in  the  prac- 
tical matters  of  life ;  and  man  is  in  a  state  of  antag- 
onism towards  God,  towards  the  Divine  law  or  order. 

HELP  MEN  TO  ACTIVELY  CHOOSE. 

Now,  when  you  have  produced  that  impression  upon 
your  congregation,  the  question  becomes  simply  one  of 
transition.  They  are  satisfied  that  they  have  lived 
wrong ;  that  there  is  a  better  way.  The  point,  in  the 
next  place,  is  how  to  determine  choice.  I  speak  with 
profound  feeling  here.  My  own  experience,  through 
many  stormy  years,  is  wrapped  up  in  this  ma,tter.  I 


BRINGING  MEN  TO  CHRIST. 


317 


feel  the  profoundest  pity  for  those  who  are  so  vaguely 
stimulated  by  preaching,  but  not  taught  or  led  to 
know  what  to  do.  As  a  little  child,  I  was  so  sus- 
ceptible of  moral  impressions  that  I  don't  remember  a 
year  of  my  life,  after  I  was  seven  or  eight  years  old, 
that  I  was  not  under  conviction  of  sin ;  that  I  did  not 
go  about  with  a  feeling  of  sadness,  —  a  feeling  that  I 
was  in  danoer  of  exile  from  heaven,  all  because  I  was  a 
sinner,  which  I  did  not  want  to  be.  There  were  times 
when  it  amounted  to  positive  anguish.  There  were 
times  of  revival  in  my  academic  and  college  course,  be- 
fore I  was  a  member  of  the  church,  when,  if  I  could^ 
have  had  the  simple  truth  as  it  now  appears  to  me,  in 
less  than  an  hour,  yes,  in  a  moment,  I  siiould  have 
come  on  to  ground  of  peace  and  trust,  of  faith  and 
love,  and  therefore  of  hope  and  courage. 

BE  SPECIFIC,  NOT  VAGUE. 

It  is  to  the  last  degree  important,  therefore,  that,  in 
dealing  with  men,  you  should  know  exactly  what  the 
point  of  difficulty  is.  Do  not  arouse  in  your  congrega- 
tion the  feeling  that  they  are  in  danger,  and  then  leave 
them  to  hold  up  their  hands  vaguely  for  something, 
they  don't  knov/  what. 

But  this  belonged  to  the  old  system,  to  the  idea  that 
God  acted  in  his  sovereignty  upon  the  hearts  of  men 
as  he  would,  when  he  would,  where  he  would ;  and 
that  man  could  do  nothing  but  wait  on  God.  In  past 
times,  a  man  suffered  more  just  in  proportion  as  he 
was  better,  —  that  is,  more  sensitive  in  conscience, — 
and  as  he  yearned  for  something  higher  and  better ;  as 
he  added  all  the  susceptibility  of  a  poet  to  all  the 


318 


J..\i:CTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


intensity  of  the  moralist ;  and  was  left  groping  for 
light,  without  any  knowledge  of  what  to  do  or  where 
to  go  ? 

Under  such  circumstances,  how  did  a  man  get  into 
the  kingdom  of  God  ?  A  great  many  men  did  n't  get 
in.  They  became  weary  and  fell  back.  A  great  many 
got  in  because,  in  some  way  or  otlier,  under  the  general 
stimulus  of  singim;  and  social  meetings,  there  did  come 
a  vision  of  Christ  that  their  souls  embraced.  It  filled 
them  with  joy,  and  they  passed  in. 

I  sometimes  think  people  get  into  heaven  as  a  blind 
man  gets  into  a  garden.  He  Iiappens  to  strike  the  first 
picket  on  the  right-hand  side  of  the  gate,  and  he  turns 
to  the  next  one  to  tlie  right,  and  the  next,  and  he  finally 
goes  around  the  whole  enclosure,  butting  against  every 
single  picket,  though  he  gets  in  at  last,  because  finally, 
in  the  order  of  time,  he  reaches  the  gate.  In  other 
cases,  a  man  may  come  in  by  the  first  intention.  What 
histories  might  be  written  of  the  experiences  of  Chris- 
tians !  Talk  about  the  Inquisition  !  The  Inquisition 
has  no  chambers  in  which  there  has  been  such  suffering 
as  in  the  silent  chambers  of  unrecorded  spiritual  his- 
tories, —  such  excruciating  sorrows,  such  useless  suffer- 
ings I  If  you  don't  know  how^  to  lead  men  into  light, 
don't  plunge  them  into  darkness. 

THE  TWO  ELEMENTS  OF  ACTION. 

What,  then,  is  the  thing  men  are  called  to  do  when 
they  are  awakened  and  become  conscious  of  their  wrong 
estate It  seems  to  me  there  are  simply  two  elements 
in  it.  One  is  the  presentation  of  the  Lord  Jesus 
Christ      the  manifest  idea  of  God.    Jesus  Christ,  as 


feRlKGING  MEN  TO  CHRIST. 


319 


he  walked  on  earth,  is  to  be  presented  to  man.  That 
is  the  pattern  of  himself  which  God  wishes  men  to  have 
before  them  when  they  determine  whether  or  not  they 
will  serve  him.  It  is  in  that  point  of  view  that  I  con- 
demn Calvinism  with  such  severity,  if  not  acerbity. 
When  I  take  Calvin's  view  of  God  and  put  it  by  the  side 
of  Jesus  Christ,  who  suffered  that  men  might  not  suffer, 
who  came  to  shed  his  blood  and  die  that  men  might 
be  redeemed,  —  when  I  put  this  by  the  side  of  the  sys- 
tematic God  that  Calvin  has  erected,  I  feel  an  unspeak- 
able horror,  a  shock  in  my  whole  moral  being.  I  say 
to  my  people:  Whatever  may  be  the  logical  excel- 
lence of  that  system,  —  and  it  is  a  wonderful  system 
of  ratiocination  and  skillful  construction,  —  whatever 
may  be  the  general  truth  of  it,  one  thing  is  certain,  that 
the  cross  of  Christ  bore  up  no  such  conception  of  God 
as  that  which  is  given  to  us  in  the  Calvinistic  represen- 
tation of  God.  I  take,  therefore,  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ 
as  the  manifestation  of  God.  I  take  the  life  of  Christ 
as  it  was  upon  earth,  and  hold  it  up  to  my  people,  and 
say:  Here  is  the  companionable  God,  who  would  in 
heaven  do  just  as  he  did  on  earth,  only  more  gloriously 
and  abundantly.  As  he  himself  said,  If  ye,  being  evil, 
know^  how  to  give  good  gifts  to  your  children,  how 
much  more  shall  your  Father  which  is  in  heaven  give 
good  things  to  them  that  ask  him." 

Now  see  what  he  was  among  men.  See  how  he 
took  them  to  his  arms  of  helpfulness  !  What  humility  ! 
What  patience  !  What  gentleness,  sweetness,  instruc- 
tiveness,  long  loving  !  What  balm  in  his  sympathy  ! 
What  healing  power  in  the  application  of  his  loving 
heart  to  the  hearts  of  those  that  were  around  him ! 


320 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


The  presentation  of  Christ's  character  as  the  sinner's 
friend  is,  beyond  all  other  things,  the  most  sublime 
and  the  most  glorious.  That  my  soul  knows  right 
well.  I  had  wandered  through  years  and  years,  try- 
ing to  submit  to  a  theological  God,  trying  to  submit 
to  a  catalogue  of  attributes.  I  had  gone  through  tlie 
seminary,  and  had,  nearly  completed  my  theological 
course,  inwardly  unbelieving.  It  was  my  duty  to  take 
a  Bible-class.  I  did  it  unwillingly.  I  undertook  to  do 
what  the  German  commentators  did,  with  whom  I  was 
then  familiar.  They  undertook  to  interpret  the  New 
Testament  just  as  tliey  found  it,  without  saying  that 
they  believed  in  it  any  more  than  in  Homer  and  Virgil. 
I  took  the  subject  of  the  relations  of  Christ  to  men  out 
of  the  four  Evangelists  and  presented  it  to  my  class  in 
that  way  ;  and,  as  I  went  on,  gathering  everything  of 
Christ  as  a  conversationist,  Christ  as  a  personal  friend, — 
I  remember  the  brightest  day  that  ever  dawned  on  this 
earth,  since  moon  and  stars  shone  upon  it,  was  that 
morning  while  I  was  studying  the  thought  of  Christ, 
and  it  flashed  upon  me,  as  the  result  of  all  the  facts 
and  instances  that  I  had  been  selecting,  that  Christ 
was  one  who  by  perfect  holiness  and  purity  knew  how 
to  be  sorry,  not  for  the  man  who  was  converted,  but  for 
the  unconverted  man,  because  he  was  sinning.  He  was 
sorry,  as  the  nurse  or  the  mother  is  sorry  for  the  child 
because  it  is  sick.  It  dawned  upon  me,  "  This  is  God, 
to  be  sorry  for  imperfection  ;  this  is  God,  to  be  sorry 
that  men  are  in  the  bondage  of  sin  and  in  the  thrall  of 
death ;  and  the  resource  and  power  of  the  Divine 
nature  are  offered  to  those  that  are  bad  to  help  them 
out  of  their  badness." 


BRINGING  MEN  TO  CHRIST. 


321 


So  there  had  been  my  trouble  always.  I  could  not 
make  myself  good  enough  for  God  to  take  me  ;  and 
I  spent  hours,  yes,  I  squandered  days  and  days,  in  fruit- 
less prayer  and  agonizing  search  to  find  a  God  who 
would  do  something  for  me,  or  to  find  that  experience 
that  was  to  come  radiant  down  through  the  atmosphere 
and  lodge  upon  my  soul.  I  could  never  find  it.  But 
when  I  found  that  the  nature  of  love  is  to  make 
lovely  things ;  that  the  nature  of  purity  is  to  make 
uncleanness  pure ;  that  the  nature  of  holiness  is  to 
inspire  holiness  among  men  ;  and  that  God's  govern- 
ment is  to  take  the  poor,  the  needy,  and  feeble  in 
his  arms  to  help  them,  loving  them  all  the  time 
while  he  is  doing  it,  to  help  them  to  himself,  —  I  no 
longer  suffered,  for  I  had  found  my  Father  which  is  in 
heaven. 

Now,  present  that  character  of  Christ  to  men,  saying, 
"  Do  you  want  this  Christ,  do  you  want  this  God  ?  Is 
this  your  choice  ?  "  I  think  you  will  find  them  coming 
quick  and  thick  around  such  presentations  of  Jesus 
Christ,  to  say,  "  My  Lord  and  my  God  !  "  Everything 
that  is  good  in  man  responds  to  it.  Everything  that 
is  base  in  man  slinks  away,  dishonored  and  disgraced, 
if  it  obstructs  the  heart's  allegiance  to  such  a  God  as 
that. 

THE  IDEAL  MANHOOD. 

Then,  secondly,  you  want  to  present  the  character  of 
typical  manhood  as  laid  down  in  the  New  Testament. 
Are  you  prepared  to  say,  to-day,  "  I  will  accept  and  love 
that  blessed  Saviour,  and  that  life  and  that  character 
shall  be  my  search  from  this  day  forward  to  the  end  of 
my  life  "  ?  When  a  man  says,  Yes,  that  I  take,  and 
14*  u 


322 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHlNa. 


that  I  acknowledge  to  be  hereafter  my  life,"  the  man  is 
a  Christian.  What  is  a  Christian  ?  A  saint  ?  Yes,  I 
hope  so,  though  it  is  tough  for  some  saints  in  the  calen- 
dar. But  so  is  a  man  a  Christian  out  of  whose  mind 
has  leaped  that  purpose.  When  is  a  seed  a  plant? 
Just  as  quick  as  it  has  begun  to  shoot  a  root  down  one 
way  and  a  stem  up  the  other.  It  is  not  a  grown  plant, 
but  it  is  a  plant  just  as  truly  as  it  ever  will  be.  And 
when  is  a  man  a  Christian  ?  The  moment  he  accepts 
Christ  and  the  purposes  of  life  which  Christ  ordained, 
by  precept  and  example  ;  the  moment  he  says,  "  That 
is  the  charter  of  my  life.  I  hold  myself  bound  by 
those  laws."  The  instant  a  man  puts  the  honest  pur- 
poses of  the  Christian  forward,  he  has  begun  to  be 
a  Christian.  "  What !  without  any  transport  ?  "  Yes, 
with  or  without.  "  Without  any  fruit  yet  ? "  Yes, 
with  or  without.  That  is  the  initial  point ;  —  the  point 
at  which  a  man  with  his  purpose  or  will  goes  over  to 
that  view  of  Jesus  Christ,  and  accepts  that  ideal  of  man- 
hood as  his  own,  and  then  begins  to  act  accordingly, 
he  has  started. 

VARIED  EXPERIENCES. 

Now,  in  the  development  of  this  purpose,  you  will 
'find,  as  in  the  process  of  conviction,  a  wide  range  of 
variation  which  you  ought  not  to  desire  to  contract. 
You  ought  to  rejoice  that  the  God  who  made  ten  thou- 
sand forms  of  flowers,  and  who  differentiates  throughout 
the  physical  world,  also  makes  every  man  different  from 
all  others.  This  variety  constitutes  an  element  of  in- 
tense interest  and  profound  sympathy.  There  will  be 
many  persons  who  will  come  gliding  into  this  state  of 
mind  as  naturally  as  a  cloud  forms.     Of  all  the 


BRINGING  MEN  TO  CHRIST.  32? 

things  that  take  place  in  nature,  there  is  nothing  so 
ethereal,  so  ineffable,  as  the  birth  of  a  cloud.  If  you 
have  spent  a  summer  in  a  mountain  region,  you  have 
had  an  opportunity  of  seeing  them  form  in  long  se- 
quence. Overhead  there  is  perfect  clarity,  deep  blue, 
the  air  as  clear  as  crystal,  and  when  you  first  look  there  is 
nothing  else  ;  but  before  you  have  ceased  to  look,  within 
a  glance  of  the  eye,  there  is  a  slight  opacity,  a  haze ;  — 
you  look  again  and  it  is  a  cloud.  A  breath  brings  it, 
swiftly  and  silent.  And  there  are  some  souls  that  move 
almost  as  ethereally  as  that.  I  have  known  persons 
who  came  into  the  Christian  life  with  as  little  friction, 
as  little  ado,  as  little  conspicuity,  and  yet  with  as  much 
certainty,  as  a  cloud  forms  in  the  pure  summer  moun- 
tain air.  Bless  God  for  such  !  Praise  him,  thank  him  ! 
Do  not  disturb  them.  If  they  love  Christ,  if  their 
hearts  gush  out  in  praise,  if  they  betake  themselves  to 
the  ways  of  Christian  life,  its  dispensations  its  bounty, 
its  magnanimity,  its  generosity,  its  truth,  its  self-gov- 
ernment, its  ardent  passion  of  life,  its  self-denial  in 
love, —  if  they  betake  themselves  to  these  moods  and 
life,  never  put  them  back  by  asking  In  what  way  did 
you  come  ?  What  was  your  experience  ?  "  If  a  child 
brings  me  to-day  a  bunch  of  spring  beauties,  or  hepatica, 
or  that  sweetest  blossom  that  grows  in  the  breast  of 
humility  under  russet  leaves,  the  mayflower,  the  trailing 
arbutus,  I  will  ask  no  questions  where  they  grew.  The 
flower  itself  is  its  own  evidence  of  orthodoxy. 

There  are  many  that  come  into  the  kingdom  of  God 
by  this  attraction.  I  know  that  a  great  many  persons 
would  say  to  such  people,  "Was  there  a  very  great 
struggle  when  you  began  to  love  God  ? "     I  used  to 


324 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


have  a  member  on  my  examining  committee  who  ques- 
tioned everybody  that  came  into  the  church  with  Do 
you  remember  any  time  when  you  hated  God  ?  '  No," 
said  a  sweet  young  maiden  ;  "  I  do  not  remember  a  time 
when  I  did  not  love  him."  That  would  not  do ;  that 
was  a  fatal  defect,  in  his  judgment.  Why,  I  rejoiced  in 
it !  I  said  to  her,  "  Hold  on,  my  child,  hold  on ;  don't 
let  him  dash  you.  You  are  right,  and  he  is  wrong."  It 
is  good  sometimes  to  make  deacons  ashamed  before 
young  people.  When  the  image  of  the  Lord  Jesus 
Christ  comes  before  such  a  soul,  its  nature  goes  right 
over  towards  him.  Who  shall  dare  stand  between  such 
a  soul  and  the  Master  who  has  found  it  ? 

I  have  presented  this  picture  to  many  persons,  who 
would  clearly  understand  the  conditions  of  salvation, 
as  they  are  called,  and  yet  who  had  a  vague  impres- 
sion that  something  else  had  got  to  come.  They  had 
had  none  of  those  Dantean  purgatorial  experiences  ; 
they  did  n't  know  that  they  might  believe  and  call  that 
being  Christians  ;  and  so  they  waited.  I  have  often 
found  that,  by  bringing  the  amplitude  and  impetuosity 
of  my  own  hope  to  bear  upon  them,  I  could  give  them 
great  help.  Why,  I  have  for  a  man,  in  such  times  as 
that,  labor-pain.  And  when  I  find  a  man  that  has  got 
the  right  condition  and  the  right  feeling,  I  can  put  him 
in,  if  he  won't  go  in  otherwise.  1  can  put  him  in  with 
an  •afflatus  of  hope,  with  an  exulting  push  of  my  soul 
on  his  soul,  and  say  to  him,  0  gazer !  0  lingering 
child !  you  are  right,  you  are  right ;  that  is  your  Christ. 
Take  him,  take  him,  you  are  near  him,  his  hand  is  on 
you."  And  with  my  certainty  and  the  excitement  of 
my  soul  and  its  sympathy  with  his,  before  he  knows  it 


BRINGING  MEN  TO  CHRIST. 


325 


he  is  right  over  on  the  other  side  of  the  rise.  Well, 
may  not  men  be  brought  over  by  hope  ?  I  say  that 
when  you  bring  before  men  the  vision  of  Christ,  not 
crucified,  but  the  Christ  that  lives  again  and  lives  for- 
ever, compared  with  whose  bright  face  the  sun  itself  is 
darkness,  —  bring  that  conception  of  the  living  God  of 
love  before  a  man,  and  I  do  not  care  by  what  door  of 
his  faculties  he  may  come  out  to  him.  He  may  come 
by  fear ;  it  is  the  worst  one.  He  may  come  by  con- 
science ;  it  is  good  enough.  0,  but  let  him  come  by 
love,  by  sweet  sympathy ;  it  is  better  than  all.  It  is 
better  that  the  child  that  has  gone  away  should  come 
home  for  the  most  selfish  reasons,  than  that  he  should 
not  come  at  all ;  yet  if  he  come  by  filial  sorrow  and 
noble  motives  it  is  the  best  way  to  come.  But  any 
way,  so  that  he  comes  !  In  general,  however,  I  think  it 
may  be  said  that  more  persons  may  be  won  by  the  love 
of  Christ,  by  the  presentation  of  these  brighter  views 
of  his  character  and  love,  than  by  any  other  means. 

Of  course  I  do  not  purpose,  in  this  brief  lecture,  to  go 
into  the  analysis  of  all  the  phenomena,  —  they  are 
endless,  —  nor  to  give  you  a  registration  of  the  classes, 
of  the  infinite  number  of  cases  that  will  occur.  It  is 
a  part  of  your  privilege  and  your  enjoyment  to  learn 
these  yourself,  in  your  own  ministry.  I  wish  only  to 
leave  an  impression  of  the  simplicity,  the  naturalness, 
the  ease,  with  which  one  may  make  the  transition 
from  the  natural  life,  in  which  the  lower  faculties  pre- 
dominate, to  the  spiritual  life,  in  which  the  higher  oi 
religious  faculties  are  in  the  ascendant. 


326 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


AFTER  CONVERSION. 

Wlien  men  have  been  brought  to  this  state  of  CGnscious 
sinfulness  and  feel  their  need  of  a  change  of  life  within 
and  without,  when  they  have  had  the  part  which  they 
are  to  choose  clearly  presented  before  them,  and  made 
the  choice,  what  will  be  the  result  ?  Well,  that  will 
depend  a  great  deal  upon  circumstances,  too.  I  have 
heard  men  say  that  they  went  to  bed  unconscious  of 
loving  God,  and  woke  up  in  the  morning  in  a  transport. 
They  think  they  were  converted  in  their  sleep.  I  don't 
think  so,  —  though  I  have  seen  men  in  church  who,  if 
they  ever  were  converted,  would  have  to  undergo  the 
process  while  asleep.  But  T  have  no  question  whatc^ver 
that  a  change  often  takes  place  7anconsciously  in  men, 
when  the  mental  processes  have  been  so  graded,  the  in- 
struction and  the  approaches  have  been  so  gradual,  that 
they  could  not  tell  when  it  came.  When  you  go  by  tlie 
Pacific  Eailroad  to  California,  you  do  not  know  where 
the  maximum  grade  is.  You  go  up  over  the  Eocky 
Mountains  with  such  a  gentle  slope,  all  the  time  rising, 
rising,  rising,  that  when  you  stop  at  last,  and  they  tell 
you  that  you  are  on  the  summit  level,  you  are  amazed ; 
you  thought  that  the  summit  level  was  such  that  you 
would  be  plunged  up  and  plunged  down  in  getting  there  ; 
but  it  was  like  going  through  a  meadow,  the  rise  was 
so  gradual.  I  have  seen  many  men  with  such  experi- 
ences as  that  in  regard  to  their  Christian  growth.  And 
the  question  should  be,  simply,  Do  they  live  right  ? 
have  they  the  right  dispositions  ?  are  they  moving  in 
spiritual  directions  ?  If  they  are,  no  matter  how  grad- 
ually they  passed  from  death  to  life.    When  the  spark 


BRINGING  MEN  TO  CHRIST. 


327 


is  first  struck,  it  does  not  glow ;  you  shield  it  darkling, 
you  feed  it,  you  have  smoke  before  flame,  and  then  by 
and  by  a  little  light ;  but  if  you  still  feed  it,  the  light 
shines  brighter  and  brighter  unto  the  perfect  day.  So  a 
person  may  be  soundly  converted  and  really  a  Christian, 
and  may  have  passed  over  into  the  promised  land  of 
faith  and  hope,  though  he  has  no  milestone  to  tell  him 
when  he  passes  the  line,  and  there  are  no  phenomena 
to  flame  it  in  heaven  or  to  proclaim  it  on  the  earth. 

Then  there  are  persons  who  have  the  most  distinct 
and  clear  perceptions  of  change.  Mr.  Riggs,  who  was 
in  college  when  I  was,  and  who  afterwards  went  abroad 
as  a  missionary,  was  one  morning  sitting  in  his  room 
conversing  on  the  subject  of  religion  with  a  friend,  who 
told  him  what  he  thought  was  necessary  in  order  to 
become  a  Christian.  "  Is  that  it  ? "  asked  young  Riggs. 
"  Yes,  that  is  it."  "  Then,"  said  he,  "  I  am  going  to  live 
that  life."  And  without  any  conviction  of  sin  he  made 
a  purely  intellectual  decision,  and  it  was  followed  at 
once  by  his  affections  and  his  actual  honest  life.  He 
he  became  not  only  a  Christian  man,  but  an  eminent 
Christian  man. 

On  the  other  hand,  there  are  tempestuous  natures, 
natures  that  break  out  into  intense  emotion.  I  do  not 
think  these  dramatic  conversions  are  necessary,  but  still, 
if  a  man's  mind  works  in  such  a  way  that  when  he  first 
gains  a  clear  vision  of  God  and  embraces  him,  and  is  con- 
scious that  all  resistance  has  ceased,  and  that  he  is 
willing  to  abandon  all  evil  ways  and  enter  upon  all 
righteous  ways ;  when  he  feels  within  himself,  "  I  have 
passed  from  death  to  life," —  if  there  is  a  transporting 
sense  of  joy  and  surprise,  I  stand  by  and  say  he  lias 


328 


LECTUKES  ON  PREACHING. 


a  right  to  his  individuality  and  his  own  experience.  All 
I  ask  is  that  he  shall  not  make  that  experience  a  despotic 
standard  for  his  quieter  brethren. 

There  was  an  old  Methodist  preacher  in  Virginia,  in 
earlier  times,  who  gave  his  experience,  in  which  —  as 
he  said  —  the  spirit  of  God  ''walloped"  him,  and  he 
could  get  no  peace.  He  told  how  it  drove  him  out  of 
his  house,  away  from  his  business  and  into  the  fields ; 
how  he  "  wallowed  in  conviction,"  as  he  expressed  it. 
He  seems  to  have  been  a  great,  strong  nature ;  and  he 
finally  bowed  down  in  the  field  before  God,  he  said  — 
he  was  a  slaveholder  and  had  nine  negro  men,  —  and 
prayed,  ''  Why,  Lord,  why  is  it  that  you  deal  so  with 
me  ?  Tell  me  what  is  in  the  w^ay,  and  I  will  give  it 
up ! "  And,  brethren,"  said  he,  "  I  saw  nine  black 
niggers  standing  right  up  before  me,  and  I  said,  '  Yes, 
Lord,  I  will  give  them  up.'  And  the  next  moment  I 
was  on  my  feet  hollering,  '  Hallelujah  !  Hallelujah  ! ' 
That  was  genuine.  I  think  there  are  a  great  many 
men  that  might  be  converted  in  that  way.  Men  who 
give  false  weights  and  measures,  who  are  doing  iniquity 
on  the  sly,  when  they  come  to  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ, 
they  come  with  a  consciousness  that  they  are  bringing 
such  unworthy  things  !  When  you  go  to  see  one  whom 
you  love  and  who  desires  to  love  you,  what  care  it  in- 
spires within  you  !  How  you  apparel  yourself  with  that 
which  is  sweetest  and  best !  How  you  take  from  yourself 
everything  that  would  be  disagreeable  !  How  you  seek 
beauty,  and  wear  it  in  flowers  !  How  you  come  into  the 
presence  of  those  you  love,  honoring  them  by  every- 
thing that  you  think  would  be  sweet  and  pleasant  to 
them!    And  when  one  goes  before  the  Lord  Jesus 


BRINGING  MEN  TO  CHRIST. 


329 


Christ  to  offer  himself  up  in  love,  a  loving  sacrifice, 
shall  he  hide  deceits  ?  Shall  he  hide  gross  appetites 
and  lusts  ?  Nay,  verily ;  when  a  man  has  come  to  the 
time  of  decision,  let  him  take  the  worst  things  about 
himself,  the  nine  black  niggers  "  before  him  ;  and  then 
let  him  place  Christ  right  over  them,  ascendant,  trium- 
phant. Let  him  put  down  his  sins,  —  let  them  go 
down  in  the  act  of  consecration.  If  there  is  this 
transport  of  emotion,  that  is  his  way ;  he  has  just  as 
much  right  to  it  as  the  English  have  to  speak  English, 
the  French  to  speak  French.  But  the  test  of  his  con- 
version from  the  love  of  sin  to  the  desire  for  holiness  is 
to  be  found,  not  in  the  manner  of  its  happening  but  in 
the  life  that  follows  it.  By  their  fruits  ye  shall  know 
them." 

I  draw  my  lectures  to  a  close  this  evening.  I  never 
part  for  a  whole  year's  separation  from  any  one  without 
the  consciousness  that  it  may  be  the  last  parting.  It  is 
not  sorrow  that  this  inspires  in  me,  though  it  is  sad- 
ness ;  but  it  is  a  sweet  sadness,  a  tempered  sadness. 
Young  gentlemen,  many  of  you  may  cut  short  your 
labors  on  earth  before  the  time  comes  round  again  for 
the  resumption  of  this  course  of  lectures,  should  they 
ever  be  resumed.  Some  of  you  may  pass  to  a  higher 
ministry  before  that  time.  Many  of  you  will  pass  out 
into  the  field  and  begin  your  earthly  ministration.  I 
can  ask  for  you  in  either  case  nothing  so  good  as  this,  — 
a  sense  of  the  love  of  Jesus  Christ  to  you ;  —  not  how 
much  you  love  him,  but  the  sense  of  the  overflowing 
affluence  of  the  love  of  Christ  for  you  !  And  I  can  bear 
you  this  witness,  that  not  all  friendship,  not  praise,  not 


330 


LECTUllES  ON  PREACHING. 


success  in  life,  not  the  joy  which  I  experience  in  com- 
munion with  nature,  not  the  rapturous  and  exquisite 
sensations  in  the  presence  of  things  beautiful,  nothing 
in  earth,  has  ever  been  to  me  such  strength,  such  con- 
stant joy,  as  the  sense  that  Christ  loved  me  while  I 
was  a  sinner,  and  as  I  am  a  sinner,  and  because  I  am  a 
sinner ;  that,  because  I  am  sick,  he  is  my  physician  ; 
and  because  I  am  weak,  he  is  my  captain ;  and  because 
I  am  imperfect,  he  is  my  "  all  and  in  all."  And,  there- 
fore, as  the  consummation  of  every  earthly  ambition 
and  as  the  assurance  of  everything  that  is  richest  and 
best,  I  can  only  wish  you  the  consciousness  of  a  living 
Saviour ;  a  high-priest,  merciful,  patient,  long-suffering ; 
a  present  help  in  time  of  trouble.  Christ  loves  you 
with  overwhelming  love  ;  may  you  know  it  and  rejoice 
in  it! 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


THIRD  SERIES. 


METHODS  OF  USING  CHRISTIAN  ZX)CTRINE8. 


r 


OOlsTTEI^TS. 


Lecturb  ^^^^ 

1.  The  Preacher's  Book  1 

Introductory  Remarks  1 

Sources  of  Truth  4 

Science  4 

The  Church      .       .       .       .       .       .       .  .6 

The  Bible     .       .  8 

Its  Aim,  —  Spiritual  Development  of  Man ...  9 

Its  Tender  Sympathy  10 

Its  Adaptedness  to  Common  Life       .       .       .  .12 

Its  Wealth  of  Material  14 

The  Value  of  its  Waste  Matter  17 

Its  Harmony  with  advancing  Truth  .  .  .  19 
The  Divine  Strength  of  its  Infancy    .       .       .  .20 

The  Divine  Idea  of  Divinity  22 

Great  Preachers        .......  24 

The  established  Authority  of  the  Bible  ...  25 
Preachers  to  be  Bible-Men  26 

XL    How  TO  USE  THE  BiBLE     .         .         .         .         .         .  29 

The  Many-Sidedness  of  the  Bible      ....  29 

The  Bible  of  the  Closet   30 

Reading  for  Personal  Need   32 

Bondage  and  Liberty  in  Reading   ....  34 

The  Decalogue   36 

The  Class-Room  Bible   38 


vi 


CONTENTS. 


The  Value  of  Theology  .39 

Excellences  and  Defects  of  Calvinism    ...  41 

What  the  Bible  is  not  44 

Errors  of  Interpretation  47 

Dangers  of  the  Right  Method  48 

Human  Reason  to  interpret  Divine  Things    .       .  50 
Relative  Value  of  Bible  Doctrines      .       .       .  .53 
Selection  of  Doctrine  for  Preaching       ...       55  ^ 
The  Preacher's  Bible  57  <^ 

III.  The  True  Method  of  presenting  God  ...  60 
The  Great  Commandment  .       .       .       .       ,  .60 

The  Objects  of  Preaching  62 

Men's  Ideas  of  God  :  the  True  Lovers       .       .  .63 

Conventionalists  64 

General  Believers   .65 

The  Respectable  Majority      .....  65 

Home-Heathen  66 

How  to  preach  God      ......  68 

His  Personality  to  be  realized  .  .  .  ,  .68 
His  Existence  not  to  be  argued      ....  69 

Man's  Moral  Keed  to  be  met  71 

Three  Elements  of  Presentation     .       .       .       .        72  ^ 

The  Divine  Personality  72 

The  Uses  of  Analysis  74 

Personality  not  Functional  Condition  .  .  .77 
Complete  Conception  of  God  impossible  .  .  78 
Richness  of  the  Bible  Method  .  .  .  .  .81 
Leanness  of  Philosophical  Methods  .  .  .  82 
Search  the  Scriptures  84 

IV.  Conceptions  of  the  Divinity        ....  86 

Preaching  of  God,  a  Source  of  Power  .       .       .  .86 

Meaning  of  Personality  .       .       .       .       .       .  87 

The  Height  and  the  Humility  of  God       ...  88 

Human  Elements  to  represent  the  Divine      .       .  89 

Human  Symbolism  of  God   91 

Invisible  Light   92 

The  Old  Testament  Symbolism   94 

Limitation  of  Symbols   97 


CONTENTS.  vii 

Social  Symbols  98 

Why  these  Elements  have  been  used  ...  99 
Growth  in  Conceptions  of  God  .  .  .  .100 
The  Barrenness  of  Abstract  Preaching  .       .       .  103 

God  in  Nature        .  106 

A  Personal  Experience        ,       .       .       ,       ,        107  * 
Follow  the  Hebraic  Spirit,  —  not  Form   .       .  .108 
How  to  realize  the  Divine  Presence     .       .       .  110 

Not  by  Will- Power  110 

Not  by  fixed  Artificial  Symbols  .  .  .  .  Ill 
But  by  seeing  God  in  everything     .       .       .  .112 

V.  Practical  Use  of  the  Divine  Ideal  ...  115 

A  Paradox  115 

Idolatry  and  Mysticism  115 

The  Known  raised  to  the  Unknown  .  .  .116 
The  Sense  of  Infinity,  a  Moral  Power  .       .       .  117 

Danger  of  the  Infinite  Ideal  119 

The  Unknowable  reduced  to  the  Knowable  .       .  120 

Use  of  the  Imagination  121 

The  Humbling  of  Self- Esteem  ....  123 
Growth  of  an  Understanding  of  Christ  .  .  .125 
The  New  Testament  seen  through  the  Old  Testament  126 

Reflected  Light  129 

Power  of  the  Old  Testament        .       .       .       .  130 
Sacredness  of  the  Name  of  God       .       .       .  .132 
The  Preacher  s  Conception  of  God  to  be  practical         134  ' 
Symmetrical  Preaching    .       .       .       .       .  .135 

Variations  of  Preaching  139 

Human  Need,  the  Preacher's  Guide        .       .  .141 

VI.  The  Manifestation  of  God  through  Christ     .  143 

Christ's  Personality  the  Center  of  his  Instruction  .  144 

Christ  to  be  presented  historically        .       .       .  146 

Relative  Importance  of  Chronological  Accuracy  .  146 

The  Doctrine  of  Christ's  Divinity        .       .       .  148 

The  Trinity  150 

The  Atonement   154 

The  New  Jerusalem  better  than  the  Old  .       .  .156 

Christ,  the  Revealer  of  God's  Personal  Disposition  157 


viii 


CONTENTS. 


Christ,  the  Deliverer   158 

Christ  to  act  through  the  Preacher's  Personality  .  160 

Human  Experience  to  interpret  the  Nature  of  Christ  162 

The  Spirit  of  Christ,  the  Central  Source  of  Power  164 

VII.  Views  of  the  Divine  Life  in  Human  Conditions  .  167 

The  Divine  Self-Consciousness  in  Jesus        .       .  168 

His  Social,  National,  and  Professional  Position        .  169 

His  Universal  Sympathy   172 

His  Susceptibility  to  Personal  Affection  .       .  .174 

Attractiveness  of  Christ's  Bearing       .       .       .  177 

Jesus  not  a  Fault-Finder   181 

The  Preacher  must  make  Christ  desirable    .       .  183 

Christ's  Love  to  Sinners   184 

Preaching  must  be  enforced  by  Practice  .  .  186 
The  Traits  of  Jesus  expanded  to  Infinity  .       .  .188 

The  Preacher's  Reward   189 

VIII.  Sins  and  Sinfulness   191 

Human  Sinfulness  a  Fundamental  Fact       .       .  191 
The  Scriptural  versus  the  Scholastic  Mode  of  dis- 
cussing it     .......       .  192 

The  Origin  of  Evil   194 

The  Nature  of  Sin   195 

The  Doctrine  of  Total  Depravity  .  .  .  .  196 
The  Error  of  the  Unitarian  Doctrine        .       .  .199 

Difficulty  of  Right  Living   202 

The  Scientific  Confirmation  of  Bible  Doctrine  .       .  203 

Individual  Repentance  .....  205 
Hopefulness  of  Christ's  Preaching    .       .       .  .207 

The  Germinant  Value  of  Morality  .  .  .  208 
Opposing  Dangers  of  Generic  Preaching  .       .  .212 

Specification  of  Characters  .       .       .       .       .  215 

IX.  The  Sense  of  Personal  Sin   218 

Conviction,  to  carry  Aspiration   .       .       .       .  218 

Experience  the  true  Text  to  preach  from  .       .       .  219^  -^ 

The  Generic  made  potent  by  the  Specific     .       .  222 

Scriptural  versus  Theological  Preaching  .       .       .  223 

Sympathy  with  Sinners   224 


CONTENTS.  ix 

Knowledge  necessary  to  Sympathy  ....  227 

Conventional  and  Real  Sins        ....  230 

The  Sunday  Question   231 

Relative  Proportions  of  different  Sins  .       .       .  234 

Relativity  of  Preaching   234 

Many  Roads  to  Conscience  .....  236 

Sinfulness  to  be  preached  toward  Hope    .       .       .  241 

Christ's  Way   242 

X.  The  Growth  of  Christian  Life      ....  245 

Disciples  o^  Christ      ......  245 

The  Three  Elements   246 

Seed-Time  and  Harvest       .       .       .       .       .  247 

Beginning-Christians      ......  249 

Infancy  needs  Protection   250 

The  First  Step   251 

Vivid  Experiences  exceptional     ....  254 

The  Point  of  Change   256 

Urgency  for  Decision   258 

Earnest  Preaching  .......  259  — 

Gradual  Concession     ......  260 

The  Use  of  Feeling   263-- 

Evidences  of  Conversion      .....  267 

Disposition  the  Criterion   270 

After-Development   271 

The  Higher  Life   273 

XI.  Christian  Manhood   277 

The  Aim  of  Paul's  Ministry     .....  277 

The  Perfection  of  Human  Character     .       .       .  279 

The  true  Nature  of  Man   280 

Object  of  the  Christian  Ministry  ....  282 

Human  Need  of  Education   283 

Love,  the  only  practical  Soul-Center    .       .       .  284 

Other  Faculties  tested   285 

The  Pauline  Conception   290 

Why  Paul  was  right   293 

The  Sun  of  Righteousness   295 

The  Perfect  Man   298 

The  Preacher's  Misjsion   300 


X  CONTENTS. 

XII.  Life  and  Immortality   302 

Immortality  in  the  Bible   303 

Effect  of  Immortality  on  the  Mind  ....  304 

The  Keason   304  \ 

The  Imagination   305 

The  Conscience   307  f 

The  Affections   3087 

This  World,  in  the  Light  of  Immortality     .       .  309 

The  Bible  View  of  the  Future   314 

Administration  of  Hope  and  Fear       .       .       .  315 
Pictures  of  Heaven  .       .       ...       .       .  .316 

Individual  Conceptions  of  Heaven       .       .       .  319 

A  Continuous  Sense  of  the  Infinite  ....  321 

The  Joy  of  bringing  Comfort       ....  323 

The  Preacher's  Refuge   324 


LeOTUEES  on  PEEAOHma 


I. 

THE  PREACHER'S  BOOK. 

February  11,  1874. 
INTRODUCTORY  REMARKS. 


MEET  you  again,  gentlemen,  with,  mingled 
pleasure  and  pain :  pleasure,  because  I  per- 
ceive many  familiar  faces,  and  because  in  a 
general  way  it  is  pleasant  to  perform  the 


tasks  that  are  allotted  to  me  ;  pain,  because  I  regard 
the  course  of  lectures  on  which  T  am  entering  this 
winter  as  by  far  the  most  difficult  of  all  that  I  have 
been  called  to  deliver.  It  will  take  me  over  the  very 
line  where  the  theological  storm  has  raged  through 
every  age ;  for  theology  is  a  perpetual  witness  of  the 
truth  of  the  Lord's  saying.  Said  he,  I  came  not  to 
send  peace  on  earth,  but  a  sword " ;  and  so  he  sent 
theologians  and  ecclesiastics  !  And,  as  you  are  aware, 
it  is  not  an  easy  thing  to  be  interjected  upon  a  regular 
course  like  this,  not  in  consultation  with  the  stated 
teachers  ;  not  knowing  what  grounds  they  are  laying 
out  for  you,  what  discriminations  they  are  making, 
what  advices  they  are  giving. 

VOL.  III.  1  A 


2 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


Certainly,  it  would  be  painful  for  me  to  stand  in 
your  midst,  and  find  myself  traversing  that  which  is 
regarded  by  your  teachers  as  sound  and  very  neces- 
sary in  the  equipment  of  ministers  for  the  field.  I  do 
not  much  feel  that  I  shall  traverse  the  substantial 
facts  that  underlie  all  theology ;  and  yet,  I  have  from 
the  very  beginning  of  my  ministry  worked  from  the 
standpoint  of  a  different  philosophy  from  that  which 
has  been  employed  in  times  past,  and  according  to  a 
different  method ;  so  that,  even  while  feeling  after  the 
same  great  truths  which  others  are  seeking  for,  I  may 
place  them  in  lights  which  make  them  apparently  an- 
tagonistic, in  a  doctrinal  form,  to  those  that  were  held 
by  the  fathers,  or  are  held  by  my  brethren  in  the  min- 
istry. On  such  grounds,  therefore,  I  might  be  considered 
unsound,"  and  not  worthy  to  be  called  an  orthodox 
man.  And  yet,  in  regard  to  the  great  elements  of 
human  nature,  of  the  divine  nature,  of  the  essential 
principles  of  moral  government,  and  its  ends  and  aims, 
and  of  the  means  employed  in  the  great  scheme  of 
salvation  through  Jesus  Christ,  I  hold  myself  to  be 
perfectly  sound,  and,  if  anything,  sounder  than  other 
folks  ! 

So  it  really  is  a  kind  of  vacillation,  rather  than  anxi- 
ety, that  I  feel  in  speaking  to  you,  as  I  shall,  in  respect 
to  the  nature  of  man  as  universally  sinful,  but  suscep- 
tible of  development  out  of  animal  conditions  into 
spiritual  conditions  ;  and  in  respect  to  the  other  main 
doctrines  of  your  belief.  For  as  to  the  reality  and 
glory  of  a  personal  God,  revealed  to  us  in  the  New 
Testament,  in  three  persons,  —  in  other  words,  the 
doctrine  of  the  Trinity ;  the  ever-blessed  truth  of  the 


THE  preacher's  BOOK. 


3 


divinity  of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ ;  the  history  of  his 
life-work,  constituting  substantially  an  atonement  for 
the  sins  of  the  world;  the  doctrine  of  the  power  of 
the  Holy  Ghost,  sent  forth  from  God,  by  which  man, 
who  needs  to  be  born  out  of  natural  life  into  spiritual 
life,  is  regenerated  by  the  development  in  him  of  all- 
controlling  Christian  sentiments, — a  new  will  and  new 
spiritual  power;  the  essential  elements  of  faith  and 
hope ;  the  great  truths  of  two-world  life  and  immortal- 
ity,— in  regard  to  all  these  great,  substantial,  and  under- 
lying facts,  I  suppose  1  stand  with  the  good  men  who 
have  lived  since  the  day  that  Paul  left  the  earth  ;  and 
I  hold  them  not  merely  in  curiosity,  nor  from  a  love  of 
their  logical  affinities  and  their  structural  fitness,  but  as 
the  wisdom  of  God  and  the  power  of  God  unto  salvation. 

It  is  my  errand  among  you  now  to  try  to  show  you 
how  you  may  do  by  the  great  truths  of  theology  that 
which  Paul  said  he  did,  namely,  use  them  as  God's 
wisdom  and  God's  power  for  the  salvation  of  men, — 
their  salvation,  through  a  change  into  a  salvable  dispo- 
sition, so  that  they  may  be  made  perfect  men  in  Christ 
Jesus.  And  if,  while  doing  this,  in  presenting  the  dif- 
ferent ways  in  which  doctrines  can  be  held  and  used,  I 
should  vary  from  the  ordinary  modes  of  teaching,  and 
if  many  of  you  think  the  variation  is  a  dangerous  one, 
all  I  can  say  is  this  :  that  there  is  an  advantage  in 
seeing  things  in  different  lights,  and  that  there  will  be 
twelve  months  in  which  the  professorial  hoe  can  cut  up 
the  weeds  that  I  shall  have  sown  during  my  brief  six 
weeks  of  lecturing.  So  that,  if  I  make  errors,  and  they 
are  the  occasion  of  bringing  out  the  truth  more  strongly 
than  it  otherwise  would  have  been  brought  out,  and  with 


4 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


greater  interest  on  your  part,  I  am  willing  to  be  refuted 
and  set  at  naught  in  order  that  you  may  be  made 
stronger,  wiser,  and  better  ministers. 

SOURCES  OF  TRUTH. 

Before  I  enter  upon  the  main  theme  of  this  course 
of  lectures,  namely,  Functional  Theology,  as  distin- 
guished from  Structural  Theology,  —  Christian  doctrines, 
as  they  are  related,  not  to  the  building  up  of  a  system, 
but  to  the  development  of  the  living  character,  —  it  is 
proper  to  consider  the  sources  whence  the  pulpit  is  to 
derive  the  great  truths  which  it  employs  in  its  work 
upon  the  souls  of  men. 

SCIENCE. 

These  are  the  more  to  be  considered  because  we  have 
certainly  come  to  a  time  in  which  the  educated  mind 
is  tending  to  fall  off  from  the  teachings  of  the  pulpit. 
I  do  not  know  how  far,  in  the  country  districts  and 
quieter  towns,  the  educated  feeling  has  let  go  of  re- 
ligion, as  it  has  been  hitherto  taught  in  the  churches  ; 
but  I  am  confident  that  in  our  large  cities  and  centers, 
and  particularly  in  circles  of  artists,  of  scientists,  and 
of  literary  men,  there  is  an  essential  unclasping  of  the 
public  mind  in  this  respect ;  and  we  hear  thousands 
saying,  *'The  pulpit  has  had  its  day;  these  old-fash- 
ioned doctrines  have  no  more  juice  in  them  ;  and,  ac- 
cording to  the  great  principle  of  evolution,  we  have  so 
far  grown  that  at  last  the  whole  world  is  becoming 
man's  text-book,  and  the  minister  ought  to  preach  to 
his  people  the  elements  of  sound  physical  life  and 
health,  the  great  sociological  laws,  the  great  civil  laws, 


THE  preacher's  BOOK.  5 

and  the  great  laws  of  political  economy."  In  short, 
there  are  many  men  who  would  tell  you  that  now,  in 
the  light  that  has  been  'growing  through  the  ages,  the 
time  has  come  in  which  Science  is  to  be  the  savior  of 
the  world,  that  the  minister  should  be  its  instrument, 
and  that  the  pulpit  should  be  the  place  where  it  is 
taught,  in  its  relations  to  life  and  duty. 

Far  be  it  from  me  to  undervalue  science,  which  I 
believe  to  be  one  of  the  revelations  of  God  in  this 
world.  The  heavens  declare  his  glory,  and  the  earth 
shows  his  hand-work ;  and  if  rightly  understood,  and 
reverently  observed,  they  lead  us  back  to  God:  but 
physical  science  has  not  in  it  the  power  to  develop 
spirituality  in  man.  When  taught  only  upon  this 
lower  plane  of  knowledge,  —  namely,  the  knowledge 
which  they  can  see,  and  hear,  and  smell,  and  taste,  and 
handle,  —  men  can  never  become  spiritual.  They  may 
have  some  slight  impetus  through  the  imagination  in 
that  direction,  —  for  even  scientists  are  beginning  to  say 
that  in  science  there  must  be  a  sphere  for  the  imagina- 
tion ;  but  those  profounder  depths  of  man,  out  of  which 
come  self-abnegation  and  sublime  enthusiasm,  those 
powers  which  lead  a  man  to  sacrifice  himself,  to  live 
joyfully  without  joy,  to  have  bread  without  wheat,  to 
have  light  without  vision,  to  be  powerful  by  the  world 
that  is  unseen  and  the  God  that  is  invisible,  to  have  a 
life  supreme,  dominating  over  other  lives,  —  these  you 
can  never  find  on  the  plane  of  mere  sensuous  knowl- 
edge. As  an  auxiliary,  material  science  is  invaluable  ;1 
but  it  touches  man  only  in  the  lower  sphere  of  life,  and  j 
never  exalts  him  into  that  higher  realm  upon  which 
he  may  enter  as  a  Christian. 


6 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


THE  CHURCH. 

It  is  thought  by  others  that  our  knowledge  should 
be  drawn  chiefly  from  the  revelation  of  God  through 
his  Church ;  and  that  in  the  Church,  in  its  economies, 
in  its  creeds,  and  especially  in  its  sacraments,  we  have 
elements  of  power  and  of  education  which  are  all-suffi- 
cient. And  under  these  impressions,  many  turn  them- 
selves to  the  Church.  Nor  do  I  wonder,  altogether, 
that  they  should  do  so ;  for  there  is  a  certain  sort  of 
weary  men,  who  will  tell  you  that  they  find  rest  in  the 
Church. 

I  had  the  pleasure  of  a  correspondence  with  certain 
ladies  who  had  gone  into  a  convent  of  the  Eoman 
Catholic  Church,  and  who  were  amiably  desirous  that  I 
also  should  become  a  true  Christian.  The  point  which 
they  continually  made  with  me  was  that  they  never 
found  any  rest  until  they  went  into  the  Church,  but 
that  there  they  found  it.  And  this  fact  is  the  very 
argument  which  I  employ  to  show  that  the  external 
church  is  a  false  church.  For  I  observe  that  when 
water  is  pure  and  sweet,  it  is  always  moving :  here  it 
is  leaping  down  the  mountain-side  ;  there  it  is  sliding 
smoothly,  though  only  for  a  while,  through  the  level 
stretches  of  the  meadows ;  yonder  it  is  plunging  again 
down  the  descent,  foaming,  and  cleansing  itself  by  foam- 
ing, in  the  air ;  and  when  at  last  it  reaches  the  deep 
pool,  it  comes  to  where  the  mud  settles,  slime  thick- 
ens, scum  gathers,  and  spores  breed.  In  stagnant  pools 
are  to  be  found,  it  is  true,  rest  and  quiet ;  but  death 
also  is  to  be  found  there. 

I  hold  that  in  this  world  it  was  not  designed  that 


THE  preacher's  BOOK 


7 


men  should  rest.  I  hold  that  exercise,  or,  in  other 
words,  excitement,  is  the  indispensable  condition  of 
evolution  or  education ;  and  that  neither  the  outward 
world  nor  the  church  world  was  ever  designed  of  God 
to  be  constructed  so  that  a  man  should  find  things  as 
he  w^ants  them,  all  thought  out  for  him,  rules  being  laid 
down  for  every  part  of  his  life,  duties  being  prescribed 
for  every  hour  of  the  day,  and  doctrines  being  made  so 
clear  to  him  that  he  can  no  more  mistake  them  than 
the  mineralogist  can  mistake  the  facets  and  angles  of 
a  crystal ;  so  that  all  that  a  receptive  man  has  to  do  is 
'  to  go  into  the  Church,  and  count  the  things  which  are  to 
be  done,  and  do  them  in  their  order.  It  is  true  that  there 
is  little  to  do  under  such  circumstances.  There  are  less 
tasks,  and  there  are  fewer  responsibilities.  There  is  a 
sort  of  attraction  in  church  life,  to  many  natures,  on 
these  accounts.  But  it  is  not  in  any  such  w^ay  that  God 
has  ever  educated  the  race,  and  it  is  not  in  any  such 
way  that  the  race  will  ever  be  educated.  And  yet,  as 
auxiliaries  to  the  true  method,  I  recognize  the  benefits 
of  church  orders  and  church  institutions,  and  especially 
in  the  claim  of  the  Eoman  Catholic  Church,  and  of 
the  Hierarchy  generally,  do  I  see  a  certain  element  of 
beauty  which  Protestants  do  not  like  to  recognize. 

That  God  does  present  the  truth  to  men  through  the*" 
Church  T  believe ;  for  I  hold  the  Church  to  be  the  body 
of  earnest  Christian-living,  right-thinking  men  in  every 
age.  It  is  stating  the  simplest  thing  in  the  world  to 
say  that  our  knowledge  is  the  result  of  the  experience 
of  the  true  men  who  have  lived  in  the  past,  clear  down 
to  our  time ;  and  that  the  truth  is  to  be  learned,  not  in 
^n  orga^nic  church,  not  on  account  of  the  fact  that  there 


8 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


is  a  boundary  of  church  lines  and  beliefs,  but  for  the 
reason  that  it  is  a  part  of  the  evolution  which  God 
carries  on  in  society  at  large,  of  which  the  Church  may 
partake,  but  which  the  Church  has  no  right  to  arrogate 
to  itself.  And  as  between  a  dead  record,  an  Egyptian 
hieroglyph  on  a  stone  or  column,  a  statement  written 
out  on  papyrus,  or  printed,  —  a  statement  that  is  just 
so  long,  and  just  so  broad,  and  that  cannot  be  changed 
one  whit,  —  as  between  this  and  the  theory  that  the 
truth  is  revealed  by  the  Spirit  in  the  living  moral  con- 
sciousness  of  God's  people,  I  would  incomparably  rather 
have  the  latter. 

THE  BIBLE. 

Therefore  I  come  to  the  ground  that  the  sources  of 
truth  are  to  be  found  in  the  Word  of  God,  as  it  is  held, 
felt,  and  interpreted  by  the  living  reason  and  moral 
consciousness  of  Christian  men,  —  the  Word  of  God, 
not  as  a  dead  record,  but  as  interpreted  by  vital  souls, 
with  such  auxiliaries  as  they  can  receive,  namely,  the 
development  of  the  natural  world,  the  disclosures  of 
Divine  Providence,  the  experiences  of  good  men,  and 
the  illumination  of  the  Holy  Ghost. 

A  Bible  alone  is  nothing.  A  Bible  is  what  the  man 
is  who  stands  behind  it,  —  a  book  of  hieroglyphics,  if  he 
be  nothing  but  a  spiritual  Champollion  ;  a  book  of  rit- 
uals, if  he  be  nothing  but  a  curiosity-monger,  or  an 
ingenious  framer  of  odds  and  ends  of  things  ;  and  a 
valuable  guide,  full  of  truth  and  full  of  benefit  for  man- 
kind, if  he  be  a  great  soul  filled  with  living  thought. 
What  the  Bible  is,  is  shown  in  the  men  who  use  it. 
It  is  not  in  the  letter  that  the  Word  of  God  has  power, 


THE  preacher's  BOOK. 


9 


but  in  the  spirit ;  and  the  living  man  is  that  spirit; 
and  as  far  as  he,  using  the  Word  of  God,  takes  it  up 
into  himself,  and  bears  it  out  to  others,  so  far  he  is  the 
Bible  for  the  time  being.  And  in  your  ministry  this 
vitalized  Bible  is  the  main  source  of  the  power  which 
you  are  to  wield  as  Christian  preachers. 

ITS  AIM,  —  SPIRITUAL  DEVELOPMENT  OF  MAN. 

Let  me  speak  some  words  more,  then,  in  respect  to 
the  Bible,  which  is  the  fountain  whence  we  must  all  of 
us  draw.  And  in  the  first  place  I  wish  to  say  that  we 
find  in  this  book  (and  nowhere  else  that  I  know  of, 
except  where  it  has  exerted  its  influence)  the  aim  to 
unfold  raankind  hy  a  moral  power  which  is  developed 
within  them. 

There  have  been  educating  forces  of  various  kinds 
in  existence  since  the  world  began ;  but  I  know  of 
no  other  source  besides  the  sacred  Canon  that  has  so 
consistently  poured  forth  such  a  stream  of  influence. 
From  the  earliest  of  the  records,  without  disconnection, 
and  without  its  being  ostentatiously  proclaimed,  but  in 
reality,  down  to  the  last  letter  of  the  last  book,  the 
Holy  Scriptures  have  one  genius,  namely,  the  exertion 
of  a  power  for  the  development  of  men,  not  as  animals, 
nor  even  as  social  creatures,  but  as  moral  beings,  pos- 
sessing the  germs  of  the  Divine  nature,  and  to  be  devel- 
oped by  the  infusion  of  the  Divine  Spirit  upon  their 
higher  faculties.  That  truth  dawned  in  the  earliest 
ages.  It  was  taught  by  the  prophets,  it  appeared  in 
the  most  disastrous  periods  of  Jewish  history  again 
and  again,  leading  to  temporary  reformations  ;  it  broke 
out  more  potently  and  more  gloriously  in  the  New 
1* 


10 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


Testament  dispensation ;  and  to  the  preaching  of  it  by 
the  Apostles  during  the  last  days  of  that  epoch  there 
has  been  no  parallel,  that  I  know  of.  So,  the  genius  of 
the  Bible  is  the  development  of  man  into  a  spiritual 
creature. 

When  men  tell  me,  therefore,  that  the  Bible  is  a  col- 
lection of  books  (or  a  clutter  "  of  books,  as  they  are 
sometimes  pleased  to  call  it),  written  in  different  ages, 
in  different  languages,  from  different  standpoints,  and 
by  different  men,  and  that  there  are  a  thousand  dis- 
crepancies in  it,  I  say  that  there  is  one  spinal  cord 
which  runs  through  it  from  the  beginning  to  the  end, 
but  of  the  importance,  the  power,  and  the  glory  of 
which  the.  world  has  been  largely  unconscious, — 
namely,  the  development,  by  education,  of  the  essential 
nature  of  man,  his  true  nature,  out  of  the  animal,  and 
out  of  the  lower  forms  of  society-life,  into  the  higher 
spiritual  form.  The  Bible  is  instinct  with  that  element, 
and  glows  with  it  all  the  way  through.  Nowhere  else 
can  you  find  such  inexhaustible  stores  in  that  direction 
as  in  the  Word  of  God. 

ITS  TENDER  SYMPATHY. 

Then,  it  is  a  book  which  overflows  with  sympathy 
for  men.  We  like  those  who  like  us,  and  what  thank 
have  we  ?  We  salute  those  who  salute  us,  and  what 
thank  have  we  ?  Kings  always  like  kings,  especially 
when  they  have  got  them  under ;  philosophers  are  apt 
to  think  well  of  philosophers  ;  rich  men  think  well  of 
rich  men ;  friends  think  well  of  friends ;  connections 
think  well  of  kindred ;  men  love  to  praise  men  of  their 
own  nation.    But  here,  in  the  midst  of  the  history  of 


THE  preacher's  BOOK, 


11 


rude  selfishness  and  class-instincts  and  personal  pref- 
erences, we  have  a  book,  coming  to  us  in  fragments, 
little  by  little  accumulating,  which  all  through,  from  be- 
ginning to  end,  looks  at  man  in  the  most  sympathetic 
and  tender  relations,  not  because  of  agreeable  or  har- 
monious qualities,  but  on  account  of  his  imperfections , 
just  as  a  mother  looks  at  the  cradle.  She  looks  at  the 
cradle,  not  on  account  of  what  the  child  says,  —  it  does 
not  talk ;  not  on  account  of  what  the  child  does,  —  it 
does  nothing.;  nor  does  she  look  at  the  child  altogether 
on  account  of  what  it  is  to  be  :  she  looks  at  it  on  ac- 
count of  its  weakness  and  helplessness,  and  its  need  of 
her  fidelity  and  love  and  care.  Now,  in  the  Word  of 
God  we  have  the  mother-instinct  all  the  way  through, 
—  a  tender  sympathy  for  man,  as  poor,  as  weak,  as 
ignorant,  as  degraded,  as  sinful,  as  damnable.  Because 
he  is  so  sinful  the  Bible  has  infinite  compassion  upon 
him.  It  breathes  this  spirit  toward  him  in  all  its  rela- 
tions, from  beginning  to  end. 

Men  go  back  to  the  Old  Testament,  questioning  and 
searching,  to  ascertain  whether  there  is  a  revelation  of 
the  Messiah ;  and  of  the  atonement ;  and  of  the  divine 
nature ;  or  whether  there  are  symbols  of  these  things  : 
but  I  go  so  far  as  to  say  that  the  very  breath  of  the 
Old  Testament  is  the  same  breath  that  prayed,  dying, 
on  Calvary  ;  and  that  the  bosom  that  gives  nutriment 
in  the  New  Testament  is  the  same  bosom  that  fed 
God's  people  in  the  Old  Testament,  both  of  them  being 
instinct  with  sympathy  for  men,  not  because  they  have 
genius,  because  they  have  attained  to  wealth  and  posi- 
tion, because  they  are  strong  and  successful ;  but  be- 
cause they  are  poor  and  needy. 


12 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


Now,  when  you  consider  that  this  book  has  come  up 
from  barbaric  ages,  amid  warring  thrones  and  bloody- 
footed  armies,  tlie  world  groaning  and  travailing  with 
cruelties  everywhere,  and  men,  like  waste  material,  like 
mud  in  the  streets,  being  trampled  under  foot  by  power ; 
when  you  consider  that  through  dark  periods  of  the 
world  this  book  came  up,  little  by  little,  breathing  the 
spirit  of  humanity  all  the  time,  —  do  you  tell  me  that 
it  was  an  accident,  and  that  I  need  those  exterior  and 
scholastic  arguments  for  its  divinity  which  men  seem 
to  think  will  affirm  it  ?    No,  verily ! 

ITS  ADAPTEDNESS  TO  COMMON  LIFE. 

Then  I  find  another  thing,  namely,  that  it  is  a  book 
which  is  pitched  to  the  key  of  common  life,  and  not  to 
an  artificial  key.  Many  a  man  wishes  that  the  Bible 
had  not  been,  in  some  respects,  just  what  it  is.  Many 
people  wish  that  the  Bible  produced  more  sudden  and 
startling  sensation,  or  that  it  constantly  had  tremendous 
strokes  in  it,  which  should  overawe  the  minds  of  men, 
or  fascinate  their  imaginations.  Many  persons  want 
the  Bible  to  act  on  men  as  Sinai  acted  on  the  common 
people  who  were  at  its  base ;  and  if  it  had  acted  on 
them  thug,  they  would  have  been  affected  about  as  the 
Israelites  were,  who,  hearing  the  voice  of  the  thunder 
and  worshiping  God  one  day,  danced  around  a  calf 
the  next. 

Now  I  find,  in  going  through  the  Bible,  scarcely  a 
single  element  which  when  it  was  written  was  not 
familiar  to  the  minds  of  the  common  people.  In  other 
words,  it  took  its  keynote  from  those  great  qualities 
which  are  common  to  humanity,  and  addressed  itself  to 


THE  preacher's  BOOK. 


13 


them.  In  every  age,  and  in  all  nations,  men  are  very 
much  alike  ;  the  great  underlying  element  of  humanity 
is  the  same  in  all  race-stocks.  Men  are  said  to  have 
sprung  from  five  primitive  stocks.  I  believe  that  the 
revered  Agassiz  and  others  have  thought  that  the  race 
proceeded  from  twenty  different  stocks.  I  do  not 
know  about  that ;  but  of  this  I  am  sure,  that  if  they 
did  start  from  twenty  different  stocks,  they  all  had  the 
same  mold;  because  it  is  beyond  all  conception  or 
belief,  it  is  out  of  the  question,  that  there  should  have 
been  five,  or  ten,  or  fifteen,  or  twenty  variations  of 
nature ;  that  there  should  have  been  numerous  differ- 
entiations resulting  in  man,  and  that  these  differentia- 
tions should  have  produced  men  so  exactly  alike ;  that 
the  basilar  faculties,  and  the  perceptive  faculties,  and 
the  reflective  faculties  should  have  been  so  identical  in 
all  the  race  that  one  man  could  understand  another, 
and  that  men  of  different  stocks  could  reason  with  each 
other.    Such  a  thing  would  be  an  impossibility. 

What  I  say  is,  that  in  the  one  comprehensive  race, 
in  all  the  minor  races  included  in  it,  there  are  certain 
underlying  particulars  which  are  the  same  ;  and  the 
word  of  God  addresses  itself  to  them.  To  be  sure,  we 
have  in  it  some  philosophical  language,  but  what  was 
philosophy  in  those  days  of  the  world  when  the  Bible 
was  constructed  ?  Solomon,  it  is  true,  had  some  time 
(aside  from  his  domestic  cares)  in  which  to  philoso- 
phize ;  but  compare  the  philosophy  of  President  Porter 
with  the  proverbs  of  Solomon.  Compare  Cousin's 
writings,  compare  Sir  William  Hamilton's  writings, 
compare  the  writings  of  any  modern  master  of  philoso- 
phy, with  the  philosophy  of  the  olden  time.  Then, 


14 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHI^TG. 


philosophy  was  a  collection  of  proverbs.  It  was  the 
wisdom  of  the  people  reduced  to  its  narrowest,  sim- 
plest, and  most  striking  form  ;  so  that  nowhere  in  the 
Old  Testament  is  there  a  large  generic  view  of  the 
moral  government  of  God  over  this  world.  There  is 
nowhere  in  the  early  writings  of  the  Bible  any  syste- 
matic teaching  in  respect  to  human  nature. 

In  our  day  men  wonder  at  Bishop  Butler's  writings, 
and  speak  of  him  as  the  originator,  in  his  time,  of  new 
schools,  which,  as  it  were,  sprang  from  his  loins.  I  do 
not  undertake  to  say  that  he  taught  the  presence  of 
that  same  divine  creative  genius  in  the  natural  world 
which  is  pointed  out  all  the  way  through  the  Bible, 
and  in  harmony  with  which  the  Bible  itself  is  con- 
structed ;  but  although  he  did  not  say  expressly  what 
he  thought,  beyond  a  question  he  did  think  that  the 
Bible  was  the  highest  and  the  sublimest  part  of  the 
natural  world,  and  that  it  was  natural,  not  in  the  sense 
in  which  we  speak  of  nature  as  degraded,  but  in  the 
sense  that  it  belonged  to  that  unitary  work  in  which 
things  physical,  things  social,  things  intellectual,  and 
things  moral  are  intersphering  and  moving  together. 
Without  a  doubt  it  was  his  belief  that  the  creation  of 
God's  Word  is  part  and  parcel  of  the  whole  advance- 
ment which  is  taking  place  in  mankind. 

ITS  WEALTH  OF  MATERIAL. 

In  the  natural  world  we  never  find  tools  ready  made, 
we  never  find  implements  constructed  for  our  use, 
we  never  find  machines,  varied  and  complicated,  with 
which  to  carry  on  the  processes  of  life ;  but  we  find 
iron  in  the  earth,  out  of  which  to  make  these  things. 


THE  preacher's  BOOK. 


15 


We  never  find,  in  the  natural  world,  knives  and  lancets 
to  our  hands  ;  but  we  find  there  the  ore  out  of  which 
steel  is  made  for  their  manufacture.  In  the  natural 
world  we  find  tlie  raw  material  for  the  supply  of  our 
physical  wants  ;  and  it  is  our  business  to  take  this  raw 
material  and  work  it  up. 

Now,  the  Word  of  God  is  filled  full  of  material  for 
philosophy,  but  there  is  no  philosophy  in  it.  It  is 
full  of  material  for  constructing  a  theory  of  human  life, 
but  there  is  no  theory  of  human  life  in  it.  It  is  full 
of  material  for  ethics,  but  there  is  no  system  of  ethics 
laid  down  in  it.  It  does  not  contain  a  prescribed 
system.  On  the  same  principle  that  it  is  said  to  a  man 
in  the  natural  world,  Work  or  starve,  dio-  or  g-o  with- 
out  iron,"  it  is  said  to  him  in  the  word  of  God,  There 
is  nothing  prepared  for  you  here."  The  Bible  is  a 
great  book  stored  with  much  that  is  beautiful  and  valu- 
able, and  which  men  can  gain  by  digging  and  working 
it,  as  ore  from  a  mine,  but  in  no  other  way. 

The  Bible,  then,  while  it  is  in  analogy  with  the  de- 
velopment of  God's  providence  in  every  other  sphere, 
has  this  advantage,  that  it  is  a  book  which  aims  at  the 
level  of  every  man's  understanding.  Out  of  it  can  be 
formed  rules  and  schemes  for  the  conduct  of  life,  as 
from  the  wool  on  a  sheep's  back  you  can  form  a  gar- 
ment. You  can  shear  the  wool ;  then  with  deft  fingers 
on  the  wheel,  you  can  draw  the  thread  out  a  thousand 
times  longer  than  it  grew  ;  then  you  can  twist  it  and 
dye  it  with  colors  that  it  never  had  before ;  then  you 
can  put  it  into  the  loom,  whose  shuttles  swing  back  and 
forth  almost  like  intelligent  messengers,  and  make  the 
fabric  ;  and  then  you  can  fashion  it  into  a  garment. 


16  LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 

This  garment  did  not  grow  on  the  sheep's  back ;  but 
all  the  way  along  it  has  been  in  the  workshop  of  the 
human  brain.  It  was  man  that  made  it,  although  the  ma- 
terial out  of  which  it  was  made  came  from  the  sheep. 

Now,  what  worlds  of  thought  there  have  been ! 
What  vast  evolutions  there  have  been  in  the  realm 
of  mind  !  What  disclosures  there  have  been  in  the 
higher  spheres  of  knowledge !  How  illimitable  has 
been  the  scope  of  living  experience  !  What  prophecies 
there  have  been  !  How  much  has  been  set  forth  in 
poetry  !  What  historical  records  have  been  made  !  In 
ten  thousand  forms  tliere  have  been  arguments  and 
teachings  in  schools  and  churches.  There  have  been 
philosophies  multitudinous  and  multifarious.  Of  sta- 
tistics there  has  been  no  end.  Vast  has  been  the  out- 
come of  those  things.  And  the  germs  of  them  all 
were  and  are  in  the  Bible.  Germs  so  simple  are  they, 
that  the  plainest  man,  that  even  a  child,  could  under- 
stand them. 

The  Bible,  therefore,  is  a  book  for  men,  and  for  men 
that  are  low  down  in  the  scale,  —  for  to  this  day  nine 
tenths  of  the  inhabitants  of  the  globe  are  but  children, 
or  are  less  intelligent  than  children  among  us.  So  that 
the  great  work  of  the  Bible  in  the  w^orld  has  begun, 
but  not  ended.  It  was  made  to  meet  the  wants  of  com- 
mon men,  or  men  less  than  common ;  it  is  in  sympathy 
with  them  ;  it  is  formed  out  of  material  which  can  be 
shaped  to  their  need ;  and  its  methods  are  within  their 
easy  reach. 

You  think  that  when  you  preach  you  must  preach 
so  as  to  touch  the  top  heads  in  your  congregation. 
Touch  the  bottom  and  you  wiU  be  sure  to  touch  the 


THE  preacher's  BOOK. 


17 


top.  He  that  puts  a  jackscrew  under  the  roof  is  not 
going  to  raise  the  whole  buikling ;  but  he  who  puts 
a  jackscrew  under  the  sills  of  a  building,  and  raises 
them  up,  will,  I  think,  take  up  everything  that  is  above 
them.  And  in  preaching,  the  man  who  is  in  dead 
earnest,  who  is  inflamed  by  divine  love,  and  who 
preaches  so  that  the  lowest  and  poorest  of  his  congre- 
gation understand  him  and  are  stirred  by  what  he  says, 
and  are  lifted  up  by  the  power  of  the  truth  as  he  pre- 
sents it,  —  does  he  not  lift  everybody  else  up  too  ? 

THE  VALUE  OF  ITS  WASTE  MATTER. 

I  want  to  say  another  thing  about  the  Bible;  for 
I  am  held  to  be  so  erratic  on  many  subjects,  that  I  must 
make  my  calling  and  election  sure  where  I  can  ! 

I  glory  in  its  chaff  and  straw.  People  ask  me,  fre- 
quently, "  Is  there  not  a  great  deal  in  the  Bible  that  is 
useless  ? "  Yes,  there  is,  —  commentators,  for  instance, 
often  !  "  But,"  say  they,  are  there  not  a  great  many 
histories,  and  stories,  and  such  like  things,  that  could 
be  purged  out  from  the  Bible  with  great  advantage  ? " 
Well,  I  should  like  to  know  what  you  would  do  for 
wheat  if  you  had  the  same  contempt  for  straw  in  April 
and  May  that  you  have  in  July  and  August.  What  is 
your  wheat  in  the  spring  ?  A  little  sucking  babe. 
What  is  your  straw  then  ?  A  full-breasted  mother 
feeding  the  wheat.  What  is  the  chaff  but  the  bosom 
of  the  plant  ?  It  is  the  mother's  arm  around  it,  pro- 
tecting it  and  carrying  it.  "  It  is  nothing  but  chaff  and 
straw,"  men  say ;  but,  I  tell  you,  the  farmer  talks  about 
chaff  and  straw  one  way  in  spring  and  another  way  in 
autumn. 

B 


18 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


Now,  since  the  Word  of  God  was  gradually  con- 
structed ;  since  it  was  upbuilt  through  two  thousand 
years ;  since  its  method  was  the  development  of  truth 
through  experience,  through  a  revelation  of  God  by 
the  experience  of  holy  men ;  one  thing  coming  out  by 
mistake,  another  thing  coming  out  by  forethought ; 
some  virtues  being  made  clearer  by  corresponding 
vices,  the  bitterness  of  which  taught  men  the  riglit 
way,  broken  laws  teaching  men  where  laws  should  be 
infrangible  ;  since  all  parts  of  tlie  Word  of  God  have 
been  applied  as  they  were  wrouglit  out,  all  along,  in 
this  way,  are  not  these  old  wrecks,  these  broken  com- 
mandments, these  mistakes  and  stumblings,  invaluable 
in  the  liistory  of  the  evolution  of  the  moral  sense  of 
mankind  ?  Is  it  for  us,  because  the  record  of  these 
things  remains  in  liistory,  to  scoff  and  scorn  them  ?  I 
honor  the  chaff  and  the  straw.  I  like  to  see  where  the 
trutlis  of  the  Bible  got  their  effulgence;  where  their 
roots  were  ;  where  they  grew  ;  what  took  care  of  them ; 
what  their  primitive  forms  were. 

We  have  some  analogies  to  these  things  in  the  pres- 
ent. You  do  not  need  to  go  four  thousand  years  back 
to  see  antiquity.  It  is  right  under  our  feet,  and  every- 
where about  us.  We  see  it  where  men  are  living 
squalid,  like  savages.  Antiquity  is  in  our  very  midst. 
Much  that  the  Bible  contains  you  may  not  want  in 
elegant  leisure ;  you  may  not  want  it  in  poetical  ease ; 
you  may  not  want  it  in  philosoplucal  enjoyment ;  there 
may  be  circumstances  in  this  later  civilization,  in  which 
you  do  not  want  it  —  or  think  you  do  not :  but  it  is  a 
book  that  mankind  need ;  it  is  a  book  for  mankind  ;  it  is 
a  book  of  mankind  ;  and  there  is  no  greater  mistake  that 


THE  preacher's  BOOK. 


19 


men  are  making  than  the  criticising  the  Bible  from 
their  own  selfish  standpoint ;  do  not  say  of  any  part  of 
the  Bible,  ''I  do  not  want  this,  and  therefore  nobody 
wants  it." 

ITS  HARMONY  WITH  ADVANCING  TRUTH. 

Let  me  only  hint  at  one  other  thing.  You  know 
that  we  are  all  of  us  under  very  great  alarm,  just  now, 
because  Mr.  Darwin  is  going  to  take  away  Christianity ; 
and  it  is  proper  that  all  of  us  who  are  orthodox  should 
shake  our  heads  wisely  when  his  name  is  mentioned, 
or  when  his  philosophy  is  spoken  of.  Far  be  it  from 
me,  therefore,  to  say  anything  in  favor  of  Mr.  Darwin  ! 
But  he  has  read  his  Bible,  evidently,  and  has  taken 
many  ideas  from  Paul ;  for  I  find  that  Paul's  theory  of 
the  natural  man,  and  Mr.  Darwin's  theory  of  the  ani- 
mal man,  are  very  near  together ;  and  that  the  whole 
line  of  apostolic  thought  in  regard  to  the  inner  man 
and  the  outer  man  has  a  strange  resemblance  to  the 
thought  which  Mr.  Darwin  is  feeling  after.  You  will 
observe  that  Paul  went  so  far  as  to  almost  deny  his 
own  personality,  as  an  animal.  He  says,  There  is  a 
law  of  the  flesh,  there  is  a  beast-law,  in  me,  and  there 
is  also  in  me  a  law  of  the  spirit,  a  God-law ;  and  these 
two  laws  are  not  reconciled.  The  animal  runs  away 
with  me  every  day :  I  hold  on,  but  he  runs  away  with 
me ;  and  as  not  the  animal,  but  the  higher  spiritual 
man  is  I,  it  is  not  I  that  sin,  but  the  animal.  I 
dwell  in  a  body  that  sins.  Here  is  an  inner  man 
and  an  outer  man ;  an  upper  man  and  an  under  man ; 
a  spiritual  man  and  an  animal  man."  This  idea  runs 
all  the  way  through  Paul's  epistles.     Not  only  so, 


20 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


but  all  the  way  through  the  Bible  there  is  a  representa- 
tion of  man  as  being  a  creature  of  time,  a  creature  with 
a  lower  nature,  but  w^ith  the  germs  of  a  higher  nature 
in  him,  which  is  developing  slowly  toward  the  highest 
elevation  that  it  is  capable  of  reaching;  it  is  only 
when  this  higher  nature  is  developed  so  that  the  light 
of  God's  soul  is  struck  through  it,  and  it  is  in  affinity 
with  the  Divine,  that  the  man  is  an  unfolded  child  of 
God.  And  he  cannot  get  the  power  of  such  develop- 
ment until  he  grows  in  the  sunshine  of  God's  own 
soul ;  until  the  mind  and  will  and  heart  of  God  touch 
his  mind  and  will  and  heart. 

But  above  all  and  beyond  all  this  philosophy,  phys- 
ical or  metaphysical,  that  can  be  found  in  its  germ- 
forms  in  the  Bible,  is  that  representation  which  is  made 
of  the  ideal  God.  By  the  ideal  God  I  do  not  mean  any 
fictitious  and  poetic  conception  of  God  ;  I  mean  that 
view  of  God  whicli  we  frame  by  the  best  effort  of  our 
understanding,  with  all  our  imagination  working  in  the 
great  invisible  moral  realm. 

THE  DIVINE  STRENGTH  OF  ITS  INFANCY. 

I  know  that  truth  is  slow  in  developing.  If  you  were 
to  find  a  perfect  alphabet  in  a  savage's  hut,  you  would 
say  that  it  was  brought  there.  If  it  could  be  shown 
that  a  savage  had  invented  a  new  language,  and  was 
using  it,  it  would  be  considered  an  anomaly.  It  would 
be  so  different  from  the  ordinary  experience  of  men  in 
all  time,  that  no  man  would  believe  it. 

Nothing  impresses  me  more  than  to  go  back  and  see 
how  the  patriarchs  lived.  Abraham,  a  respectable  old 
sheikh  of  the  desert,  hardly  ever  said  or  did  anything 


THE  preacher's  BOOK. 


21 


worth  remembering.  He  was  powerless,  comparatively 
speaking.  Isaac  was  a  very  mild  shadow  of  his  father. 
Jacob  was  a  substantial  man,  to  be  sure ;  he  was  politic 
and  diplomatic ;  he  was  a  good  manager,  —  a  very  ex- 
cellent manager.  And  while  I  look  upon  the  charac- 
ters of  Abraham  and  Isaac  and  Jacob,  I  cannot  under- 
stand how  they  could  have  been  so  dear  to  the  Jews. 
Measuring  by  the  ordinary  ideas  of  our  time,  we  can- 
not see  what  great  thoughts  or  great  developments  ever 
came  out  of  their  brains ;  though  out  of  their  experi- 
ence grew  that  helpful  conception  of  God  as  the  de- 
fense and  the  recompense  of  the  faithful,  —  "  I  am  thy 
shield  and  thy  exceeding  great  reward."  And  then, 
take  that  declaration  of  God  to  Moses  in  the  thirty- 
fourth  chapter  of  Exodus.  I  think  the  conception  there 
given,  where  God  reveals  his  moral  nature  to  Moses,  at 
his  supplication,  —  the  majesty  of  it,  the  fullness  of  it, 
the  quality  of  it,  the  proportion  of  it,  and  the  drift  of 
it,  —  is  something  more  than  sublime.  There  is  noth- 
ing in  the  New  Testament  that  surpasses  it.  The  New 
Testament  indeed  may  be  said  to  be  but  a  paraphrase 
of  it. 

Now,  how  can  you  account  for  the  fact  that  there 
stands  that  magnificent  conception  of  Jehovah,  which 
was  revealed  to  Moses  in  the  beginning,  —  that  same 
conception  which  crops  out  again  and  again  in  the 
prophets,  and  all  the  way  down  through  the  Scriptures, 
with  more  and  more  clearness  until  the  time  of  Jesus 
Christ,  when  in  him  we  had  the  full  manifestation  of 
God? 

Remember  that  this  was  in  a  dynastic  age.  Remem- 
ber that  God  gave  out  his  life  clearly  in  an  age  when 


22 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


men  were  but  little  above  the  animals,  and  when  the 
senses  gave  law  and  ethics  to  the  world. 

THE  DIVINE  IDEA  OF  DIVINITY. 

And  what  is  the  conception  of  God  which  runs 
through  the  Old  Testament,  and  all  the  way  down? 
Compare  it  with  the  Grecian  conception  of  him,  and 
then  with  the  Eoman,  which  was  subsequent  to  it. 
Compare  it  with  the  Assyrian  notion  of  the  Divine 
nature.  Compare  it  with  all  the  collateral  ideas  of 
God  which  existed.  Not  that  there  are  not  correct  and 
noble  points,  here  and  there,  in  all  mythologies  and 
religions ;  but  take  the  conceptions  of  Jehovah  and  of 
Jesus  which  we  find  in  the  New  Testament,  —  what 
are  they  ?  They  are  not  simply  conceptions  of  power : 
they  are  essentially  conceptions  of  charaxter.  And 
more  than  that,  they  are  conceptions  of  character  in 
the  relations  of  love  to  mankind ;  and  not  in  the  rela- 
tions of  love  alone,  but  in  the  relations  of  self-sacrifice 
as  w^ell.  Long  before  these  ideas  ever  appeared  in 
philosophy  or  in  poetry,  there  was  lifted  up  in  the 
early  ages  a  sublime  idea  of  God  as  one  who  carried 
the  world  in  his  arms,  as  a  mother  carries  her  child 
in  her  bosom.  This  idea  grew  stronger  and  stronger, 
until  the  Saviour  in  glory  bowled  his  head  and  came 
down  to  earth,  and  was  not  ashamed  to  be  called  a 
man  and  a  brother,  and  declared  that  he  came  not  to 
destroy,  but  to  save  ;  that  he  came  to  give  life,  not  to 
take  life  ;  that  he  came  to  show  that  greatness  was 
service  rendered,  and  not  service  accepted.  He  washed 
his  disciples'  feet,  and  said,  "  I,  your  Lord,  have  done 
this,"  —  how?  why?  —  "to  teach  you  what  you  should 


THE  preacher's  BOOK. 


23 


do ;  to  teach  you  what  is  the  rule  of  moral  life  and 
character ;  to  teach  you  what  is  mercy  ;  to  teach  you 
what  is  the  nature  of  the  Godhead ;  to  teach  you  that 
it  is  not  will,  not  power,  not  control,  not  sovereignty, 
but  that  it  is  service.  The  Divine  idea  is  that  of 
the  greater  serving  the  less  ;  of  the  stronger  serving 
the  weaker;  of  the  richer  serving  the  poorer;  of  the 
better  serving  those  that  are  less  good.  It  is  the 
eternal  nature  of  God  to  give  himself  for  men,  that 
they  may  be  lifted  up  out  of  their  lowness  and  meager- 
ness  unto  him.  Now,  this  view  is  to  be  found  regnant 
all  through  the  Bible,  from  beginning  to  end ;  and  it 
is  to  be  found  nowhere  else,  that  I  know  of,  as  it  is 
in  that  book.  It  has  been  hinted  at  in  sermons  and 
essays  and  all  manner  of  tractates,  but  it  is  much  more 
largely  developed  in  the  Word  of  God  than  it  has  ever 
been  out  of  it.  It  is  the  slowest  and  last  thing  for  men 
to  learn. 

I  do  not  understand  this  to  be  the  idea  of  Calvinism 
and  Augustinianism.  I  hold  Calvinism  to  teach  the 
sovereignty  of  absolute  will  and  wisdom.  Every  man 
is  a  Calvinist,  no  matter  what  church  he  belongs  to, 
who  has  a  great  deal  of  will,  and  thinks  it  ought  to 
dominate  !  Calvinism  illustrates  the  monarchical  idea 
rather  than  the  idea  of  fatherhood.  Men  have  repre- 
sented God  as  being  sovereign.  It  is  said  that  he 
made  all  things,  and  that  because  he  made  them  he 
has  a  right  to  do  just  as  he  pleases  with  them.  It  is 
claimed  that,  having  created  men,  he  has  a  right  to 
raise  up  some  and  dash  down  others.  When  applied 
to  the  will  of  God  as  dealing  with  matter,  I  assent  to 
this ;  but  when  applied  to  the  Divine  will  as  dealing 


24 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


with  the  destinies  of  men,  not  only  in  time,  but 
throughout  eternity,  I  protest  against  it.  I  say  that 
the  God  of  Calvinism  is  not  the  God  of  Calvary.  To 
teach  that  God,  because  he  is  the  greatest,  and  has  the 
most  wisdom,  and  is  the  most  powerful,  has  a  right  to 
rule  arbitrarily,  is  contrary  to  the  teaching  of  the  Gos- 
pel. My  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  when  he  washed  the  dis- 
ciples* feet,  taught  that  he  who  would  be  most  like 
God  should  be  willing  to  do  the  lowest  services,  and  to 
do  them  to  the  poorest  and  most  degraded  of  his  fel- 
low-men. That  is  the  mark  of  divinity  !  I  find  this 
nowhere  so  forcibly  and  wondrously  illustrated  as  in 
the  New  Testament. 

GREAT  PREACHERS. 

The  Bible  is  the  preacher's  book,  not  only  because  of 
these  things,  but  because  in  its  latter  stages  you  have 
the  pattern  preachers  portrayed.  Paul,  for  instance,  I 
consider  the  greatest  of  preachers.  He  was  a  man  who 
used  his  whole  life-force  in  behalf  of  his  fellows,  to 
imbue  them  with  the  truth,  and  with  motives  for  seek- 
ing a  higher  development  and  striving  after  salva- 
tion. He  was  a  man  who  put  all  the  resources  of  his 
genius  at  the  disposal  of  those  who  were  about  him. 
He  was  unmatched  in  Jewish  education.  He  had  an 
extraordinary  wealth  of  tenderness.  Though  he  had 
great  susceptibility  and  great  pride,  yet  he  carried  him- 
self with  great  humility  among  the  discordant  elements 
which  surrounded  him.  Next  to  Christ,  I  like  to  look 
at  this  man  Paul,  and  contemplate  his  character  and 
his  work.  Indeed,  he  walked  almost  a  Christ  among 
men.    How  various  were  his  talents  !    How  admirable 


THE  preacher's  BOOK. 


25 


was  his  employment  of  them !  What  a  similarity 
there  was  between  his  sensibility  and  tenderness,  and 
the  simplicity  and  sweetness  and  gentleness  and  quiet 
majesty  of  Christ.  Paul,  being  proud,  was  sensitive 
to  all  men's  thoughts,  so  that,  as  he  declared,  he  died 
daily.  And  he  often  refers  to  himself  in  his  writings. 
There  is  not  a  letter  of  his  that  does  not  indicate  his 
consciousness  of  what  he  suffered,  or  felt,  or  did ;  EgOy 
blessed  EgOy  —  made  blessed  everywhere  throughout 
his  writings  !  This  was  the  man  who  was  willing  to 
spend  and  be  spent.  What  is  more  matchless  than 
this  declaration  ?  — 

I  will  very  gladly  spend  and  be  spent  for  you,  though 
the  more  abundantly  I  love  you,  the  less  I  be  loved." 

This  man,  who  knew  nothing  but  to  throw  a  blaze 
of  light  upon  the  cold  and  hard  and  selfish  natures 
about  him ;  this  man,  who  came  to  men  in  the  dark 
Eoman  Empire  as  May  winds  and  summer  breezes 
come  to  unlock  the  frozen  soil  everywhere,  and  to 
bring  warmth  to  vegetation,  —  this  noble  man  is  the 
model  of  preachers  ;  and  whoever  acquires  his  spirit  has 
his  armory  full,  needs  no  other  weapons,  and  is  com- 
plete in  his  equipment. 

THE  ESTABLISHED  AUTHORITY  OF  THE  BIBLE. 

There  is  one  other  fact  in  respect  to  the  Bible,  of 
which  I  desire  to  speak,  namely,  that  happily  it  has 
been  so  long  in  the  world,  and  so  much  taught,  that  it 
is  an  authority  now  among  the  common  people,  cer- 
tainly throughout  Christendom.  That  is  an  advantage 
which  ought  not  to  be  ignored.  The  reverence  of  men 
for  the  Bible  should  not  be  undermined. 

VOL.  III.  2 


26 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


PREACHERS  TO  BE  BIBLE-MEN. 

Young  gentlemen,  I  cannot  say  all  that  I  have 
marked  out  for  myself.  I  shall  reserve  some  further 
thought  on  this  subject  for  to-morrow  afternoon,  as  to 
the  methods  by  which  you  are  to  use  this  book.  But 
let  me  say  to  you,  that,  in  my  judgment,  all  other  edu- 
cation put  together  is  not  an  equivalent  for  a  thorough 
and  sympathetic  personal  knowledge  of  the  Bible. 
You  ought  to  live  in  its  atmosphere  until  it  strikes 
utterly  through  and  through  you.  No  philosophical 
formula,  no  statistical  tabulations,  can  be  a  substitute 
for  its  essential  spirit,  —  that  which  is  in  it  of  God,  and 
that  conception  which  is  in  it  of  regenerated  manhood 
or  the  development  of  spiritual  life  in  man,  and  all 
those  things  which  fill  the  apothegms,  and  maxims,  and 
brief  sentences  of  the  Apostle's  writings  full  of  marrow, 
and  make  them  overflow  with  sweetness. 

Take  those  little  words  and  expressions  which  occur 
in  the  thirteenth  chapter  of  Corinthians  :  Love  suffer- 
eth  long,  and  is  kind ;  love  envieth  not ;  love  vaunteth 
not  itself,  is  not  puffed  up  ;  doth  not  behave  itself  un- 
seemly ;  seeketh  not  her  own ;  is  not  easily  provoked  ; 
thinketh  no  evil ;  rejoiceth  not  in  iniquity,  but  re- 
joiceth  in  the  truth  ;  beareth  all  things,  believeth  all 
things,  hopeth  all  things,  endureth  all  things ;  love 
never  faileth."  Every  one  of  them  is  a  flower  with 
honey  in  the  bottom.  They  are  just  as  full  of  sweet- 
ness and  fragrance  as  they  can  be.  All  the  way 
through,  every  slightest  word  was  dropped  out  of  a 
honey-bearing  soul. 

The  Word  of  God  has  not  grown  old,  any  more  than 


THE  preacher's  BOOK. 


27 


forests  grow  old,  or  the  sky  grows  old,  or  the  seasons 
grow  old  ;  and  with  all  your  gettmgs,  get  that  under- 
standing which  comes  from  making  yourselves  per- 
fectly familiar  with  the  Bible,  with  its  interior 
substance,  as  that  which  shall  be  a  lamp  unto  your 
feet,  and  a  light  unto  your  path,  so  that  you  shall  be 
accustomed  to  look  at  everything  in  life,  unconsciously, 
from  the  divine  standpoint,  measuring  men,  ways, 
motives,  all  things,  from  the  inner  spirit  of  the 
Word  of  God.  Then  the  outside  world  and  science 
will  help  you,  and  the  Church  and  its  ordinances  will 
help  you. 

First  of  all  things,  be  ye  transformed  into  spiritual 
Bible-men.  If  you  had  not  another  volume  on  earth, 
you  could  make  very  excellent  preachers  of  yourselves 
by  the  Word  of  the  Lord.  Allow  me  to  speak  of  my 
own  early  ministry  in  this  respect.  I  owe  more  to  the 
Book  of  Acts  and  to  the  writings  of  the  Apostle  Paul 
than  to  all  other  books  , put  together.  I  was  sent  into 
the  wilderness  of  Indiana  to  preach  among  the  poor 
and  ignorant,  and  I  lived  much  in  my  saddle.  My 
library  was  in  my  saddle-bags  ;  I  went  from  camp-meet- 
ing to  camp-meeting,  and  from  log-hut  to  log-hut.  I 
had  my  New  Testament,  and  from  it  I  learned  that 
which  has  been  the  very  secret  of  any  success  that  I 
have  had  in  the  Christian  ministry.  My  strength  has 
been  in  the  love  of  Christ ;  in  the  glory  of  that  concep- 
tion of  God  which  is  in  Christ  Jesus ;  in  the  sense  that 
my  business  was  to  win  men ;  and  in  my  attempt  to 
win  them  by  bringing  the  same  influences  to  bear  upon 
them  which  I  found  abounding  throughout  the  New 
Testament. 


28 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


Blessed  it  would  be,  for  many  of  you,  if  you  could  be 
shut  up  to  the  Bible  in  your  work,  if,  for  several  years, 
at  least  during  the  earlier  part  of  your  ministry,  you 
could  go  into  the  field,  taking  your  Bible  in  your  hand, 
and  with  it  labor  for  men,  for  their  conversion  and 
for  their  salvation. 


IL 


HOW  TO  USE  THE  BIBLE. 

February  12,  1874. 
THE  MANY-SIDEDNESS  OF  THE  BIBLE. 


T  may  be  said  of  the  Bible,  as  it  is  of  the 
alphabet :  it  is  what  you  make  it.  Letters 
all  have  a  power  of  their  own,  and  they  are 
unchangeable  ;  but  with  you  is  the  combina- 


tion, and  the  literature  which  flows  from  the  alphabet 
is  your  literature,  though  the  alphabet  represents  it. 
We  see  streams  setting  from  the  Word  of  God,  almost 
innumerable,  of  theories  and  doctrines  ;  and  they  can 
hardly  all  be  correct,  because  some  of  them  are  mutually 
destructive.  And  so  I  may  say,  without  being  misun- 
derstood, that  there  are  a  great  many  Bibles.  But  in 
using  the  same  Bible,  by  the  same  man,  there  are  diverse 
modes,  which  make  really  different  books  of  it.  There 
are  three  in  particular  that  I  shall  speak  of  this  after- 
noon, in  continuing,  as  I  do,  the  discussion  of  the 
Sources  of  Christian  Truth  and  Doctrine. 

There  are  what  may  be  called,  then,  the  Bible  of  the 
closet,  the  Bible  of  the  class-room,  and  the  Bible  of  the 
pulpit.  I  do  not  mention  these  as  being  separate  from 
each  other,  because  they  run  more  or  less  into  one 


30 


LECTUHES  ON  PHEACHINa. 


another.  Still  less  do  I  speak  of  them  as  being  antago- 
nistic, because  they  all  have,  or  may  have,  an  auxihary 
relationship  to  each  other ;  so  that  the  most  perfect 
use  of  sacred  Scripture  will  be  that  which  combines 
the  three. 

THE  BIBLE  OF  THE  CLOSET. 

First,  the  Bible  of  the  closet.  It  has  this  peculiarity, 
that  its  function  is  to  give  sustenance,  light,  direction, 
inspiration,  and  consolation  to  the  person  who  makes 
application  to  it.  It  is  the  word  of  God,  as  studied 
by  any  one  for  his  personal  benefit,  not  seeking  to 
know  his  relation  to  others,  except  so  far  as  his  duties 
are  concerned ;  not  seeking  to  know  the  system  of  the 
universe ;  not  looking  for  philosophies,  nor  for  ideas, 
except  so  far  as  philosophies  or  ideas  have  immediate 
reference  to  his  own  personal  life.  It  is  the  personal 
Bible,  the  private  man's  Bible  ;  and  as  such  it  is  to  be 
studied  in  the  spirit  in  which  the  Apostle  spoke  when 
he  said  :  — 

*^A11  Scripture  is  given  by  inspiration  of  God,  and  is 
profitable  for  doctrine,  for  reproof,  for  correction,  for  instruc- 
tion in  righteousness ;  that  the  man  of  God  may  be  perfect, 
thoroughly  furnished  unto  all  good  works." 

Now,  no  two  men  are  just  alike  ;  no  two  men  have 
precisely  the  same  difficulties  ;  no  two  men  have  pre- 
cisely the  same  needs.  Put  twenty  men  at  the  goodly 
table  of  the  New  Haven  House, 'and  you  shall  find 
scarcely  two  of  them  selecting  their  food  alike  ;  watch 
their  amount  of  sleep,  and  you  shall  scarcely  find  any 
two  of  them  that  agree  exactly  in  that  particular ;  and 
the  same  will  be  true  in  respect  to  other  experiences 


HOW  TO  USE  THE  BIBLE. 


31 


where  temperament,  habit,  necessity,  business,  and  vari- 
ous other  elements  come  in ;  and  as  this  is  in  evident 
accordance  with  natural  law,  you  think  it  is  wholesome. 

Men  read  the  Word  of  God  on  the  principle  of 
elective  affinity,  and  there  are  many  who  go  trumpet- 
ing and  triumphing  all  the  w^ay  through  it,  because 
they  always  see  things  coulmr  de  rose.  They  are  of  a 
buoyant,  imaginative  temperament ;  they  fish  for  that  in 
the  Bible  which  feeds  them,  that  they  like  to  read ;  and 
they  go  skipping  and  jumping  along  on  the  salient  points 
of  joy,  and  leave  out  the  interstitial  spaces  of  darkness. 
And  if  you  could  mark  what  for  twenty  years  has  sus- 
tained them,  you  would  find  that  it  is  not  the  whole  of 
the  book,  nor  that  part  of  the  book  which  some  other 
man  took,  but  something  that  was  personal  to  them- 
selves, and  that  came  to  them  on  account  of  certain 
wants  and  tastes. 

Then,  if  you  take  another  person  who  is  naturally 
timid,  who  is  melancholy,  w^ho  is  overwhelmed  in  life 
with  disappointments,  you  will  find  that  he,  going  to 
the  Word  of  God,  is  perpetually  comforting  himself 
with  the  consolations  which  he  finds  in  it.  He  acts 
also  on  the  principle  of  elective  affinity.  Because  he 
likes  consolation,  he  therefore  seeks  it  everywhere.  Be- 
cause he  needs  comfort,  he,  as  it  were,  works  it  out  of 
the  Word  of  God,  looking  at  different  parts  of  Scripture 
always  or  generally  from  the  same  point  of  view. 

I  suspect  that  there  is  not  a  single  one  of  you  who  is 
in  the  ministry,  and  who  has  preached  on  any  subject 
involving  human  wants,  who  has  not  had  some  persons 
in  his  congregation  that  said,  "I  hope  he  will  shape 
that  sermon  so  as  to  suit  my  case     but,  instead  of  that, 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


the  preacher  went  on  with  his  first/'  and  "  secondly," 
and  "  thirdly,"  through  his  entire  discourse,  and  they 
went  out,  saying,  ''Well,  I  suppose  that  was  a  good 
sermon.  I  hoped  it  would  come  down  to  where  I  am, 
and  meet  my  need,  but  it  did  not."  They  wanted  con- 
solation ;  but  they  got  an  intellectual  disquisition  on 
something  which  wonderfully  helped  somebody  else  in 
the  congregation,  but  did  not  feed  them. 

READING  FOR  PERSONAL  NEED. 

Therefore,  of  the  scores  of  people  who  go  to  the 
Word  of  God,  each,  if  he  goes  honestly  and  earnestly, 
seeks  to  feed  himself ;  and  what  food  he  wants  depends 
very  much  on  the  way  in  which  he  is  made,  on  the 
exigencies  in  which  he  stands,  and  on  the  experiences 
that  have  developed  some  parts  of  his  moral  nature 
and  left  some  parts  of  it  uneducated  and  unformed. 
There  are  ten  thousand  human  wants,  and  no  one  man 
can  prescribe  for  them  all.  It  would  require  omnis- 
cience to  do  that.  But  the  Word  of  God  meets  them, 
and  must  interpret  itself  to  people  according  to  their 
various  needs.  When  persons  are  made  willing  by  the 
Spirit  of  God,  by  the  Spirit  of  the  Invisible,  they  will 
find,  both  in  and  out  of  the  Bible,  green  pastures  and 
still  waters  for  themselves. 

So  I  may  say  that  the  Word  of  God  is  like  the  cir- 
cumjacent country.  One  goes  out  from  your  classes, 
and  scales  East  or  West  Eock.  He  studies  its  structure. 
He  explores  the  whole  country  to  make  himself  familiar 
with  its  geological  formation.  And  when  he  returns,  he 
gives  an  account  of  that  part  of  nature  in  which  he  is 
particularly  interested.     Another  goes  out  and  comes 


HOW  TO  USE  THE  BIBLE. 


33 


back  without  having  seen  a  stone,  —  unless  he  has 
stubbed  his  toe  against  one.  He  has  been  studying  the 
botany  of  the  country.  He  loves  that.  Another  does 
not  care  for  either  of  these  departments  as  a  realm  of 
scientific  facts ;  for  he  has  a  poet's  eye,  and  would  sing, 
if  he  could,  the  things  that  he  sees.  He  sees  them  in 
suggestions.  Behind  every  plant,  there  is  to  his  eye  a 
more  beautiful  one.  Above  everything  that  he  beholds 
there  is  something  rarer  than  the  thing  itself.  The 
artist  follows  the  poet,  and  is  not  greatly  different  from 
him  ;  but  he  is  kept  near  to  the  earth  by  the  necessity 
of  representation.  '  He  sees  things  in  a  still  different 
light.  He  studies  their  combinations,  their  gradations 
of  color,  and  their  minute  parts.  He  is  thinking  all 
the  time,  "  How  could  that  be  portrayed  ?  How  could 
this  be  worked  up  ?    How  could  I  sketch  that  ? " 

All  of  them  have  seen  nature  ;  but  nature  is  not 
different  because  they  bring  back  different  reports  con- 
cerning it. 

Now,  through  the  glades,  in  the  forests,  over  the 
mountains,  along  the  valleys,  and  upon  the  plains  of 
Sacred  Writ,  men  go,  and  follow  the  leading  of  their 
want.  Blessed  be  God,  they  have  that  liberty.  And  the 
same  man  will  seek  different  things  according  to  his 
varying  moods  or  needs.  Men  seek  sometimes  the  things 
that  open  toward  the  other  life,  and  sometimes  the 
things  that  interpret  the  lowest  experiences  of  this  life. 
So  there  is  always  this  personal  Bible,  —  a  Bible  that  is 
vastly  neglected.  Men  think  that  they  read  their  Bibles 
when  they  do  not.  There  are  many  who  have  a  super- 
stitious reverence  for  it,  and  go  to  it  periodically,  and 
skim  over  portions  of  it ;  but  they  do  not  read  it. 

c 


34 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


BONDAGE  AND  LIBERTY  IN  READING. 

A  man  starts  for  his  business,  and  gets  as  far  as  the 
door ;  and  his  wife  calls  out  to  him, My  dear,  have  you 
forgotten  prayers  ? "  "  Well,"  he  says,  "  we  have  n't  had 
prayers,  have  we  ?  I  did  forget."  Back  he  goes,  and 
takes  his  Bible,  and  turns  to  the  twelfth  Psalm.  He 
chooses  that  because  it  is  short.  Blessed  be  the  Psalms  ; 
they  are  of  all  lengths  and  shapes,  to  meet  every 
emergency !  Having  hastily  gone  through  a  perfunc- 
tory service,  he  starts  for  his  business  again,  saying, 
"  The  Devil  did  n't  catch  me  to-day  ;  I  have  read  my 
Bible." 

Now,  how  does  that  differ  from  putting  an  amulet 
around  a  man's  neck,  or  from  worshiping  an  idol  ? 
You  might  as  well  look  into  a  cook-shop  window  and 
think  you  are  fed,  as  to  go  to  your  Bible  in  that  way 
and  think  that  it  is  of  any  use  to  you.  You  have 
abused  it,  not  used  it. 

I  lay  great  stress  on  this  liberty  which  belongs  to 
men,  this  necessity  which  is  laid  upon  them,  to  find 
that  in  the  Word  of  God  which  shall  meet  their  case, 
and  read  it  according  to  their  personal  wants.  There 
are  those  who  learn  the  Bible ;  there  are  thousands  of 
humble  people  to  whom  it  becomes  familiar ;  for  it  is  a 
peculiarity  of  the  Word  of  God,  that  as  men  run  under 
trees  and  get  behind  rocks  when  storms  are  in  the  sky, 
though  otherwise  they  would  not,  so  we  seek  a  covert 
in  the  Bible  when  we  are  in  trouble,  as  we  would  not  at 
any  other  time. 

God's  Word  is  not  a  house  of  bondage.  It  is  not 
required  that  a  man  shall  every  morning  marshal  his 


HOW  TO  USE  THE  BIBLE. 


35 


family,  and  call  the  roll,  and  grind  out  a  ritualistic  or 
regulation  prayer,  and  read  his  Bible.  God's  Word  is  a 
Father's  house,  into  which  you  have  a  right  to  go,  and 
speak  or  keep  silent.  You  are  children  of  God,  and 
this  provision  has  been  made  for  you ;  but  it  is  not  to 
be  enforced  upon  you,  as  though  you  were  slaves. 
You  are  to  avail  yourselves  of  it  according  to  your 
need.    You  are  free  in  this  matter. 

I  suppose  no  person  ever  did  or  ever  will  read  the 
whole  Bible  in  his  life.  I  know^  there  are  persons  who 
read  it  by  letter ;  I  hear  people  say  that  they  make  it  a 
rule  to  read  the  whole  Bible  once  a  year ;  and  T  have 
no  doubt  that  they  skate  over  it  once  a  year;  but  I 
do  not  think  they  do  more  than  that,  because  it  is  not 
all  for  them. 

Take,  for  instance,  a  great,  square-built,  good,  honest- 
minded,  practical  Yankee,  who  knows  the  quality  of 
matter,  and  who  knows  how  to  put  thing  and  thing 
together,  and  make  money  out  of  them,  —  take  such  a 
man  and  put  him  into  Solomon's  Songs,  and  see  what 
he  will  make  out  of  them. 

Take  now  an  Oriental,  a  man  who  was  born  under 
different  skies ;  who  is  of  a  different  stock ;  whose  an- 
cestors have  had  different  associations  from  genera- 
tion to  generation  ;  whose  mind-methods  are  different ; 
whose  growth  is  more  by  the  imagination  and  less  by 
the  practical  reason,  —  take  such  a  man,  and  he  will 
say  of  the  Songs  of  Solomon,  "  That  is  the  buckle  of 
the  Bible.  It  is  that  which  clasps  and  holds  together 
all  the  other  books." 

And  so,  all  the  way  through  the  Bible,  there  are 
things  which  men  who  are  proud,  or  men  who  are 


36 


LECTURES  ON  PRiEACHINa. 


constitutionally  without  wisdom,  cannot  understand,  — 
they  are  mysteries  to  them.  There  are  deep  things  for 
mystics  in  the  Bible  which  people  who  have  no  mysti- 
cism are  unable  to  see.  They  do  not  see  them  when 
they  look  at  them.  In  the  Bible  there  are  things 
for  the  twilight,  things  for  the  moonlight,  things  for 
the  midnight,  things  for  the  day-dawn,  and  things  for 
the  noontide.  The  Bible  is  filled  with-  ineffable  riches 
for  men ;  and  it  belongs  to  every  man  to  select  accord- 
ing to  his  need. 

The  different  parts  of  the  Bible  are  of  very  different 
values  for  private  reading.  I  think  there  is  a  great  deal 
of  the  Bible  that  is  just  as  necessary  for  the  race  as  the 
spelling-book ;  but  how  long  is  it  since  you  sat  down  to 
read  your  spelling-books  ?  You  are  done  with  them  ; 
and  yet  you  do  not  disparage  them,  nor  cry  them  to 
na,ught. 

THE  DECALOGUE. 

Take  the  Ten  Commandments.  It  is  true  that  by 
a  very  liberal  construction  you  can  make  them  cover 
about  everything  in  creation,  as,  by  beating  gold  with 
gold-beaters'  skin  you  can  make  a  piece  as  big  as  my 
hand  cover  an  acre  or  so.  The  Ten  Commandments 
stand  where  men  emerge  from  the  lowest  conditions, 
and  in  the  dawn  of  the  recognition  of  God's  authority. 
They  have  to  do  with  the  commonest  vices  of  men,  and 
with  their  plainest  duties  in  society.  They  are  the 
charter  that  imposes  conditions  without  which  there 
could  not  be  rectitude,  or  the  proprieties  of  life,  or  the 
sanctities  of  the  household.  But  they  are  all  negative. 
All  that  which  is  called  in  the  New  Testament  "  the 


HOW  TO  USE  THE  BIBLE. 


37 


fruit  of  the  Spirit,"  is  left  out  of  them.  Of  the  glow 
of  interior  illumination  there  is  not  a  ray  in  them.  Far 
back  they  stand  in  the  beginning  of  the  history  of  the 
world,  and  far  down  in  that  history  which  reproduces 
itself  in  every  generation.  They  are  adapted  to  the 
building  up  of  a  lower  style  of  man.  Their  cry,  for- 
ever, is,  "  Thou  shalt  not,"  Thou  shalt  not."  Woe  to 
that  man  who  has  lived  among  churches  and  Bibles 
and  preachers,  and  has  not  got  higher  than  the  Ten 
Commandments  !  And  yet  we  see  them  emblazoned 
in  the  House  of  God  as  though  they  expressed  the 
highest  ideas  to  which  men  have  reached.  They  say  to 
men,  "  Thou  shalt  not  steal.  Thou  shalt  not  bear  false 
witness,  Thou  shalt  not  commit  adultery  "  ;  the  grosser 
and  more  bestial  forms  of  sin  are  forbidden  by  them ; 
but  those  moral  virtues  and  spiritual  attainments  which 
belong  to  a  developed  manhood  are  not  enjoined  in 
them.  I  do  not  say  that  it  would  not  do  very  well  for 
men  who  are  pretty  high  up  in  civilization  to  read 
them  yet ;  there  are  many  men  tliat  are  called  civilized 
who  I  think  would  profit  still  by  reading  them  in 
respect  to  some  of  those  vices  which  they  condemn. 
But  they  are  an  illustration  of  what  I  mean.  In  my 
estimation,  the  Ten  Commandments  are  not  to  be  com- 
pared with  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount,  which  is  some- 
times supposed  to  be  the  highest  peak  in  the  'New 
Testament.  No,  it  is  not,  by  a  great  deal.  The  fif- 
teenth, sixteenth,  and  seventeenth  chapters  of  John  — 
those  incomparable  discourses  of  Christ  in  the  love- 
hours  which  just  preceded  his  crucifixion  —  are  as 
much  higher  than  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount  as  that 
is  higher  than  the  Ten  Commandments, 


38 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


There  are,  then,  variations  in  the  moral  value  of  dif- 
ferent parts  of  the  Bible,  if  men  only  have  the  inter- 
preting necessity  in  them  by  which  to  discern  these 
things. 

Such  is  what  I  call  the  Bible  of  the  closet.  It  is  inter- 
preted by  personal  necessity,  and  by  elective  affinity  ; 
but  that  is  not  all.  It  is  an  immediate  source  of  conso- 
lation. It  comforts  in  sorrow  ;  it  relieves  in  perplexity ; 
it  is  a  mother  in  the  household ;  it  is  a  counselor  to 
the  mechanic,  to  the  workman,  when  he  asks,  "  Where 
shall  I  go  ?  What  shall  I  do  ?  How  shall  I  carry 
myself  ? "  When  men  are  stirred  up ;  when  they  are 
oppressed ;  when  they  are  burdened ;  when  they  are 
yoked,  harnessed,  and  driven  by  depressing  moods,  then 
they,  above  all  other  men,  must  have  a  personal  Bible 
speaking  to  them,  day  by  day.  Under  such  circum- 
stances the  Bible  becomes,  not  only  a  lamp  to  their  feet 
and  a  light  to  their  path,  but  bread  for  their  life,  medi- 
cine for  their  soul,  and  water  coming  to  them  from 
under  the  very  throne  of  God  itself. 

THE  CLASS-ROOM  BIBLE. 

Next,  we  have  the  Bible  of  the  class-room.  This  is 
the  Bible  philosophized  and  interpreted  according  to 
some  system.  It  is  indispensable  that  there  should  be  a 
Bible  of  the  class-room.  The  Word  of  God  is  so  large  ; 
it  touches  human  nature  on  so  many  sides ;  there  is  so 
much  in  it  of  duty  and  of  destiny  hereafter ;  it  is  so 
composite  and  so  variable  ;  parts  of  it  are  so  apparently 
antagonistic  with  each  other  until  a  comprehensive 
view  is  gained  of  it,  as  a  record  that  has  come  down 
through  thousands  of  revolving  years,  among  different 


HOW  TO  USE  THE  BIBLE. 


39 


peoples  and  in  different  languages ;  there  is  so  much  in 
it  that  requires  explanation  and  rearrangement,  that 
when  we  undertake  to  look  at  it  as  a  whole,  it  is  neces- 
sary that  there  should  be  a  Bible  of  the  class-room,  in 
which  the  various  teachings  shall  be  digested  and  ac- 
counted for. 

First  come  those  indispensable  men,  the  philologer 
and  the  archaeologist.  These  two  men  simply  take  the 
Bible  and  put  it  into  your  hands  with  such  illustration 
as  is  essential  to  a  knowledge  of  the  text. 

THE  VALUE  OF  THEOLOGY. 

Then  comes  the  theologian  proper.  Now,  young 
gentlemen,  I  have  often  indulged  myself  in  words  that 
would  seem  to  undervalue  theologians  ;  but  you  know 
I  do  not  mean  it !  I  profess  to  be  a  theologian  myself; 
my  father  was  a  theologian ;  my  brothers  are  all  theo- 
logians ;  and  so  are  many  men  whom  I  revere,  and  who 
are  the  brightest  lights  of  genius,  I  think,  that  have 
ever  shone  in  the  world.  I  believe  in  theologians  ;  and 
yet  I  think  it  is  perfectly  fair  to  make  game  of  them ! 
I  do  not  think  there  is  anything  in  this  world,  whether 
it  be  man  or  that  which  is  beneath  man,  that  is  not 
legitimate  food  for  innocent,  unvicious  fun ;  and  if  it 
should  cast  a  ray  of  light  on  the  truth,  and  alleviate 
the  tediousness  of  a  lecture  now  and  then  to  have  a 
slant  at  theologians,  why,  I  think  they  can  stand  it !  It 
will  not  hurt  them,  and  it  may  amuse  us.  So  let  me 
speak  freely,  —  the  more  so,  because  I  affirm  that  it  is 
indispensable  for  every  man  who  is  to  do  a  consider- 
able religious  work  during  a  long  period,  or  with  any 
degree  of  self-consistency,  to  be  a  theologian.   He  must 


40  LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 

have  method ;  there  must  be  a  sequence  of  ideas  in  his 
thought.  And  if  the  work  runs  long  enough  and  far 
enough,  and  embraces  many  things,  there  must  be  a 
system  of  applying  means  to  ends,  there  must  be  a 
knowledge  of  instruments.  These  things  are  theology, 
in  a  sense,  —  a  part  of  it,  at  any  rate. 

Indeed,  philosophizing  follows  of  necessity  after  cul- 
ture. It  is  one  of  the  fruits  of  intelligence.  To  merely 
know  facts  is  to  be  no  higher  than  an  animal.  When 
you  begin  to  know  the  relations  of  facts  you  begin  to 
ascend.  When  you  know  facts  and  their  relations  in 
a  large  department,  you  become  a  philosopher  of  that 
department. 

Theologian,  then,  is  only  another  name  for  philoso- 
pher. The  theologian's  department  is  the  philosophy  of 
moral  ideas  and  their  connections  with  mankind. 

Not  only  so,  but  a  good  understanding  of  Scripture 
itself  demands  that  there  should  be  interpretations 
given  of  it.  The  work  is  made  more  accessible  and 
plainer  by  theology,  in  spite  of  all  its  evils  of  method. 
And  in  the  main  let  me  say  that,  while  I  do  not  believe 
in  a  great  many  of  the  theological  methods  and  systems 
which  have  prevailed,  I  do  not  despise  them.  I  do  not 
speak  of  them  with  contempt,  any  more  than  I  do  of 
certain  civil  governments,  which  certain  nations  or  cer- 
tain times  demanded,  but  which  do  not  fit  our  times 
nor  our  nation ;  or,  any  more  than  I  do  of  the  schools 
of  Alexandria,  which  did  not  compare  with  Yale  or 
Harvard,  but  which  were  admirable  in  their  age,  and 
which,  by  their  very  excellences,  stimulated  growth, 
the  old  institutions  being  no  longer  applicable  to  the 
xiew  conditions  which  were  produced  by  theni, 


HOW  TO  USE  THE  BIBLE. 


41 


As  summer  makes  the  tree  so  much  larger  that  the 
bark  has  to  let  out  a  seam,  because  the  old  bark  will 
not  do  for  the  new  growth,  and  as  the  same  thing 
takes  places  from  season  to  season,  so  mental  philoso- 
phy —  for  all  theology  is  mental  philosophy  —  changes 
from  age  to  age,  through  both  obvious  and  latent 
causes. 

EXCELLENCES  AND  DEFECTS  OF  CALVINISM. 

Look,  for  instance,  at  the  view  of  the  Divine  econo- 
my which  was  represented,  in  an  iron  age,  by  John 
Calvin,  —  a  man  without  bowels  and  intensely  in  sym- 
pathy with  the  monarchic  idea.  That  view  has  been 
assailed  a  thousand  times  more  severely  in  the  in- 
visible process  by  which  democratic  ideas  have  gone 
through  the  mass  of  men,  than  ever  it  has  been  by 
those  who  have  spoken  and  written  against  it.  Men 
have  come  to  have  an  entirely  different  notion  of  the 
rights  of  the  citizen  ;  and  political  affairs  have  changed 
in  men's  estimation ;  and  those  dynastic  Views  and 
ideas  of  the  Divine  Being  which  once  prevailed  would 
be  absolutely  impossible  to  men  in  our  day,  except 
such  as  are  in  sympathy  with  the  special  faculties  of 
self-esteem,  firmness,  and  conscientiousness,  which  suit 
the  ruler-mind  and  the  ruler-nature.  But  in  general  it 
is  to  be  said  that  all  the  systems  of  theology  which 
have  prevailed  in  the  world  have  done  a  great  work. 

I  may  speak  in  your  hearing,  sometimes,  slightingly 
of  John  Calvin.  He  knows  as  well  as  I  do  that  I  do 
not  mean  any  harm  to  him.  I  revere  him.  and  appre- 
ciate his  great  work.  The  world  is  greatly  indebted 
to  him.    When  the  whole  of  Christendom  was  broken 


42 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


off  from  sensuous  and  visible  objects  of  adoration,  and 
they  felt  that  they  had  lost  everything  ;  when,  having 
been  trained  to  believe  that  religion  presented  to  them 
bodily,  in  church  forms,  all  that  they  needed  in  their 
worship,  they  were  called  to  suddenly  step  out  of  these 
forms,  they  said,  "  Why,  we  have  lost  everything  ; 
there  is  nothing  left."  Before,  there  were  days,  and 
calendar,  and  saints,  and  priests,  and  garments,  and 
cathedrals,  and  all  the  panoply  that  was  required  for 
a  believer  in  material  things,  but  now  they  were  gone. 
When  it  was  said  to  them,  "  Abandon  your  symbols 
and  ceremonies  and  services,"  and  they  were  like  the 
men  who,  having  eaten  garlics  and  onions  in  Egypt, 
found  themselves  eating  nothing  on  tlie  other  side  of 
the  Red  Sea,  then  John  Calvin  filled  their  imagination, 
and  gave  them  just  as  much  to  believe  as  they  could 
hold,  and  a  little  more. 

The  transition  was  a  magnificent  one.  It  was  a 
grand  era.  As  a  mental  phenomenon  it  is  not  half 
enough  pondered.  He  substituted  for  that  which  had 
been  taken  away  from  them,  or  which  they  had  given 
up,  a  system  of  such  intellectual  power  and  such  ele- 
ments for  admiration  and  adhesion,  that  it  was  well 
adapted  to  the  irregular  times  in  which  he  reared  it. 
So  it  did  a  wonderful  work,  besides  being  an  ark  in 
which  to  carry  men  over  from  papacy  to  the  better 
ground  of  Protestantism.  I  like  old  John  Calvin,  be- 
cause I  think  he  believed  what  he  preached,  —  though 
I  cannot  say  so  of  hundreds  of  later  men  ;  they  are  not 
large  enough  for  the  space  they  occupy.  If  David  had 
gone  forth  in  Saul's  armor,  his  voice  might  have  sounded 
out  from  it  on  this  side,  or  on  that ;  he  might  liave 


HOW  TO  USE  THE  BIBLE. 


43 


rattled  about  in  it  after  a  fashion ;  but  he  would  not 
liave  felt  at  home  in  it.  Men  go  into  a  system  of 
theology  which  is  as  much  larger  than  they  are  as  a 
lobster  is  larger  than  a  snail ;  and  they  pipe  through 
it,  and  make  a  little  noise,  and  this  is  all !  I  do  not 
accuse  them  of  insincerity  ;  but  I  say  that  the  system 
they  use  is  not  adapted  to  them.  John  Calvin's 
system,  however,  fitted  him  all  over,  and  I  think  he 
really  enjoyed  it,  —  there  are  evidences  that  he  did; 
and  its  work  since  that  time  has  been  wonderful.  It 
has  done  both  good  and  evil.  It  has  raised  up  many 
sturdy  and  stalwart  Christian  men.  But  it  has  also 
crushed  many  and  many  a  heart.  It  has  wrung  sor- 
rows and  sadnesses  out  of  sensitive  natures  such  as  none 
but  the  recording  angel  knows.  It  has  turned  many 
days  to  darkness  ;  and  much  of  the  light  of  God  which 
came  free  as  the  air  has  been  intercepted  by  it ;  and 
when  it  fell  upon  the  understandings  of  men,  its  color 
was  some  lurid  red  or  some  hideous  blue.  That  I 
know  right  well,  both  in  my  own  experience  and  in 
the  experience  of  those  whose  troubles  I  have  been 
called  to  medicate  in  hundreds  and  hundreds  of  in- 
stances. 

So,  while  I  regard  Calvin  as  one  of  the  master  minds 
of  the  ages  ;  while  I  believe  that  some  part  of  the  truth 
which  belonged  to  his  system  was  never  before  so  ably 
stated  as  he  stated  it ;  while  I  think  that  his  statement 
of  it  can  never  be  improved,  —  yet  I  say  that  in  many 
respects,  so  far  as  that  is  concerned  w^hich  should  be 
the  supreme  idea  of  any  system,  namely,  the  nature  and 
administration  of  the  Divine,  I  do  not  think  it  is  Chris- 
tian.   I  think  it  is  essentially  what  the  religion  of 


44 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


nature  was,  before  nature  knew  that  there  was  a  Sa- 
viour.   It  is  monarchic  and  hard,  in  my  judgment. 

Well,  all  this  that  I  have  been  saying  about  theol- 
ogy and  theologians  is  apologetic  and  explanatory.  I 
would  set  myself  right  with  you.  I  say,  therefore,  that 
I  admire  theologians,  and  that  I  thoroughly  believe  in 
theology,  though  I  claim  the  right  to  criticise  both, 
and  to  express  my  like  or  dislike,  according  to  the 
measure  of  reason  and  feeling  which  God  has  given 
me. 

WHAT  THE  BIBLE  IS  NOT. 

Now,  then,  let  me  speak  of  the  way  in  which  the 
Bible  comes  into  the  class-room,  and  becomes  the 
foundation  of  a  system. 

Generally,  almost  invariably,  the  theologian  comes 
to  the  Bible  (in  times  gone  by  he  did,  at  any  rate) 
with  the  general  impression  that  it  contains  all  that 
is  necessary  for  a  man  to  know  in  respect  to  the 
Divine  Being;  that  it  is  relatively  a  perfect  exposi- 
tion of  the  nature  of  God.  The  Bible  does  not  make 
any  such  claim,  but  the  theologian  goes  to  the  class- 
room, Bible  in  hand,  with  the  assumption  that  there  is 
in  the  Word  of  God  all  that  is  needed  for  the  develop- 
ment of  a  system  of  universal  moral  government ;  that 
it  does  not  confine  itself  to  substantial  facts  and  gen- 
eral outlines,  but  that  it  runs  down  deep  into  minutiae, 
and  far  back  into  the  eternities,  even ;  that  everything 
essential  to  the  belief  of  a  Christian  man  is  contained 
there  in  so  many  words,  or  by  such  immediate  infer- 
ence as  to  be  unavoidable  and  certain ;  that  directly,  or 
by  indispensable  conclusion,  the  frame  of  the  Church, 


How  to  USE  THE  BIBLE. 


45 


its  polity,  its  offices,  its  government,  its  work,  and  its 
whole  administration,  either  are  delivered,  or  are  to  be 
delivered,  to  the  hands  of  men,  by  provision  which  has 
been  made  in  the  Word  of  God.  All  these  assump- 
tions are  made  on  the  supposition  that  the  Word  of 
God  is  a  perfect  man  of  counsel,  and  is  adequate  to  all 
the  emergencies  of  the  world.  Now,  I  do  not  believe 
in  any  one  of  those  points.  I  do  not  believe  that  the 
Bible  contains  all  that  it  is  necessary  for  a  man  to 
know  of  God.  It  was  not  designed  that  it  should. 
Do  you  suppose  that  the  Bible  w^as  meant  to  be  a  sub- 
stitute for  the  revelation  of  the  Holy  Ghost  ?  Do  you 
suppose  that  there  is  anything  in  the  Bible  which  can 
teach  men  as  I  was  taught,  when  almost  every  earthly 
sensation  was  paralyzed,  and  I  stood  by  my  dead  first- 
born ?  In  the  utter  abandonment  of  my  soul,  I  opened 
my  heart  to  God,  and  his  Spirit  came  down  and  taught 
me  a  lesson  of  his  fatherhood  that  I  found  neither  in 
Genesis,  nor  in  Exodus,  nor  in  Leviticus,  nor  in  the 
Prophets,  nor  in  any  of  the  books  of  the  Bible.  It  was 
first  disclosed  to  me  by  the  Holy  Ghost ;  and  then  I 
went  back  to  the  Word  of  God.  Though  I  did  not  see 
the  thing  itself,  I  saw  its  germ  there;  and  I  did  not 
know  how  to  interpret  it  until  I  received  light  from 
the  Divine  Spirit. 

Do  you  not  suppose  that  God  means  man  to  work 
out  his  own  knowledge  of  the  Bible,  and  of  the  truths 
that  are  in  it,  as  well  as  to  work  out  his  own  salvation  ? 
Do  you  suppose  the  Bible  is  a  substitute  for  human 
findings-out  ?  Do  you  suppose  that  it  contains  every- 
thing that  is  to  be  known  ?  Do  you  suppose  that  it 
is  a  thesaurus,  an  encyclopedia  of  knowledge,  meeting 


46 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


universal  necessity  ?  Do  you  suppose  that  as  a  foun- 
tain of  instruction  it  is  all  in  all  ?  Certainly  it  is  not. 
The  unfolding  ages  continually  add  to  our  knowledge 
of  things,  never  taking  us  away  from  the  germs,  any 
more  than  literature  takes  us  away  from  the  alphabet, 
or  any  more  than  the  highest  mathematics  take  us 
aw^ay  from  the  numerals,  which,  disappearing,  reappear 
again  in  the  highest  functions  and  uses. 

The  man  who  has  found  himself  out  by  experience, 
who  has  brought  in  the  largest  liarvests  from  life,  who 
has  pressed  from  the  grape  the  pure  wine,  who  has 
made  of  wheat  the  best  flour,  —  he  feels,  more  than  any 
other,  how  rich  the  Bible  is.  He  goes  out  of  the  Bible 
to  find  things  that  he  does  not  find  in  it  or  that  he 
finds  there  in  germinal  forms,  rude  tendencies,  which  it 
was  designed  that  man  should  work  out.  The  Bible 
was  meant  to  start  him,  but  it  was  intended  that  he 
should  go  on  to  perfection. 

So,  then,  without  time  and  development,  in  other 
words,  without  the  ordinary  building  process  w^hich 
the  Divine  Providence  is  carrying  on  through  all  the 
ages  of  the  world ;  without  that  revelation  of  knowl- 
edge which  God  is  bringing  forth  from  the  earth  be- 
neath us,  from  the  starry  depths  above  us,  from  past 
generations  of  men,  from  nature,  from  governments, 
from  climates,  from  industries,  and  from  emergencies 
that  have  swelled  the  conceptions  of  humanity  in 
every  age,  —  without  all  these  elements,  the  Bible  itself 
is  not  perfect.  For  the  Bible  was  not  meant  to  be  like 
a  tree  standing  alone.  Neither  was  it  meant  to  be  like 
a  solitary  cave,  w^ith  some  oracle  speaking  from  the 
wilderness.    It  is  part  and  parcel  of  human  life  ;  of 


HOW  TO  USE  THE  BIBLE. 


47 


providence  ;  of  the  great  process  of  unity  under  the 
Divine  administration.  It  goes  with  man,  giving  and 
taking  alike ;  giving  more  and  receiving  more  ;  forever 
augmenting ;  never  so  poor  as  in  the  beginning,  and 
never  so  rich  as  in  tlie  l^ter  periods  of  the  world. 

EERORS  OF  INTERPRETATION. 

In  interpreting  the  Bible,  men  are  liable  —  I  say  by 
way  of  criticism  —  to  error  in  carrying  back  modern 
ideas  to  old  words  in  the  Bible,  so  that  final  fruits  are 
made  to  stand  in  the  very  beginnings  of  time.  They 
convert  the  whole  liberty  of  emotion  and  imagination 
into  ideas  ;  and  to  things  that  are  of  themselves  evanes- 
cent and  transitory  tliey  give  fixity.  In  other  words,  I 
complain  that  a  book  so  generously  and  carelessly  writ- 
ten, now  with  the  unlimited  freedom  of  prophetic  inspi- 
ration, now  with  poetry,  and  now  with  sentiment,  is  so 
often  ground  over,  and  that  it  comes  out  of  the  mill  in 
the  form  of  absolute  scientific  statistics.  The  personal 
element  is  construed  into  the  universal.  That  which  is 
said  of  one  man,  and  of  him  in  particular  emergencies, 
in  the  Bible,  is  translated  as  something  which  belongs 
to  human  nature.  That  which  is  said  to  be  true  in  one 
age  is  supposed  to  be  a  generic  statement  of  that  which 
is  true  in  every  age.  That  which  is  true  of  a  man  in 
one  stage  of  his  development  is  supposed  to  be  true  of 
him  in  every  stage  of  his  development. 

In  this  way,  men,  forming  their  systems  of  theology 
out  of  the  Bible,  bring  to  it  methods  which  it  cannot 
bear ;  which  mar  it  rather  than  clear  it  up  ;  which  spoil 
it  rather  than  help  it. 

All  this  is  a  criticism  of  their  method.    It  is  a  criti- 


48 


LECTURES  ON  I^REACHING. 


cism,  not  of  their  attempt  to  draw  out  a  generic  view 
and  statement  of  the  Bible,  but  of  their  attempt  to  do 
it  by  imperfect,  and  sometimes  by  very  wrong  methods. 

DANGERS  OF  THE  RIGHT  METHOD. 

Then,  again,  they  bring  the  right  principle  to  work 
in  the  wrong  way,  which  results  in  a  fatal  error ;  the 
principle,  namely,  that  the  Bible  must  be  interpreted, 
not  from  the  letter  altogether,  nor  at  all,  but  from  the 
thing  that  the  letter  speaks  of.  If  I  were  to  state  it  in 
terms  that  many  would  regard  as  audacious,  I  should 
say  that  the  interpretation  of  the  Bible  is  not  in  itself, 
but  outside  of  itself  This  may  seem  to  be  a  bold  state- 
ment, but  it  is  not.  You  all  believe  it.  You  know  per- 
fectly well  that  it  is  true  in  regard  to  physical  things. 
A  child  in  the  Sunday  school  knows  that  when  the 
Bible  says  stone  "  there  is  nothing  in  the  letters  that 
spell  that  word  which  tells  you  what  stone  is.  But  if, 
seeing  the  word  in  the  Bible  you  go  and  look  at  the 
thing  itself,  then  you  can  return  to  the  Bible,  and  say, 
"  I  know  what  stone  is."  If  the  Bible  speaks  of  rivers, 
of  mountains,  of  trees,  of  lambs,  of  calves,  of  lions,  of 
peacocks,  of  gold,  of  silver,  or  of  anything  that  is  ma- 
terial, nobody  supposes  that  one  can  understand  what 
these  things  are  until  he  has  seen  them  outside  of  the 
Bible. 

Now  the  same  thing  is  true  in  respect  to  social  ele- 
ments. If  the  Bible  speaks  of  husband  and  wife,  or  of 
brother  and  sister,  we  know  no  more  about  them  than 
we  do  about  cherubim  and  seraphim,  unless  we  know 
what  brother  and  sister  and  husband  and  wife  were 
before  we  go  to  the  Bible.    We  take  that  which  is 


HOW  TO  USE  THE  BIBLE. 


49 


outside  of  the  Bible  and  use  it  as  a  means  of  interpret- 
ing statements  which  are  m^ade  inside  of  it. 

So,  in  all  the  relations  of  life,  where  the  Bible  speaks 
of  love,  and  sparing,  and  pitying,  and  helping,  and  hop- 
ing, and  all  elements  of  this  class,  we  gain  a  knowledge 
of  them  from  the  exterior,  and  then  carry  that  knowledge 
to  the  interior,  of  the  book. 

That  which  is  true,  and  which  is  admitted  to  be  true, 
in  respect  to  physical  and  social  elements,  is  likewise 
true  of  all  forms  of  government.  Nothing  in  the  Bible 
would  teach  us  what  a  king  was,  if  we  had  not  learned 
it  outside  of  the  Bible.  Laws,  constitutions,  modes  of 
public  procedure,  —  the  knowledge  of  these  things  can- 
not be  conveyed  by  the  letter  alone.  Nations,  towns, 
cities,  villages,  —  when  these  things  are  spoken  of  in 
Scripture,  we  first  go  to  the  things  themselves,  and 
then  we  bring  back  to  the  letter,  to  throw  light  upon  its 
interpretation,  the  knowledge  that  we  have  gained. 

The  same  is  true  in  respect  to  mental  philosophy,  or 
that  which  relates  to  things  that  are  beyond  the  reach 
of  our  sense,  —  things  that  transcend  our  powers  of  in- 
vestigation, —  things  that  pertain  to  the  invisible  world. 
The  nearest  that  we  can  come  to  these  is  to  take  the 
analogies  which  approach  most  nearly  to  them,  and 
then,  for  the  rest,  depend  upon  the  imagination.  Thus 
we  shape  them  as  well  as  we  can.  We  never  can  know 
perfectly  things  which  are  not  within  the  reach  of  our 
comprehension  by  one  or  other  of  the  faculties  of  the 
mind. 

The  Scriptures  address  themselves  to  our  power  of 
apprehension.  We  have  means  of  understanding  by 
which  to  obtain  that  knowledge  toward  which  they 

VOL.  III.  3  D 


50 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


point ;  and,  having  obtained  it,  we  go  back  to  the  state- 
ments which  they  make. 

Now,  to  be  safe  in  the  formation  of  a  theory  or  doc- 
trine from  the  Bible,  men  should  not  only  recognize 
this  fact,  but  they  should  guard  against  its  abuse,  —  for 
it  may  be  abused.  It  is  open  to  very  serious  objections 
and  liabilities.  It  is  like  a  road  along  the  edge  of  a 
fathomless  gulf,  and  therefore  it  ought  to  be  carefully 
guarded.  Men  should  be  taught  to  use  their  liberty  in 
interpretation ;  but  men  have  used  that  liberty,  and 
denied  that  they  used  it.  They  have  brought  to  the 
interpretation  of  God  their  foregoing  knowledge,  their 
special  political  biases,  their  overt  or  latent  notions  of 
mental  philosophy,  their  views  of  the  divine  moral 
nature,  their  ideas  of  the  way  in  which  God  has  con- 
structed each  man's  personality ;  and  these  things  have 
all,  unconsciously  to  them,  gone  into  the  construction 
of  their  theologies.  Thus  they  have  used  great  liberty 
of  interpretation,  and  they  ought  to  have  used  it ;  but 
it  would  have  been  better  if  they  had  used  it  with  their 
eyes  open,  with  larger  method,  and  with  proper  rules 
for  the  correction  of  personal  error,  and  what  not. 

HUMAN  REASON  TO  INTERPRET  DIVINE  THINGS. 

But  if  men  do  it  avowedly,  a  great  outcry  is  made 
against  it.  If,  for  instance,  I  should  say,  in  the  pulpit 
of  Plymouth  Church,  that  the  human  reason  should 
sit  in  judgment  on  divine  things,  and  if  it  should  be 
reported  in  the  papers  the  next  day,  thrice  a  thousand 
good  men  would  hold  up  their  hands  with  horror,  and 
exclaim,  "  Where  will  that  fellow  stop  ?  "  And  yet,  if 
you  must  not  bring  human  reason  to  divine  mysteries, 


HOW  TO  USE  THE  BIBLE. 


51 


I  should  like  to  know  how  you  are  going  to  bring 
divine  mysteries  to  human  reason,  —  and  if  they  are 
not  brought  there,  they  are  nothing  to  you ;  or,  under 
such  circumstances,  they  do  not  exist  so  far  as  you  are 
concerned.  Just  as  though  the  Word  of  God  did  not 
appeal  to  reason  in  the  most  profound  things.  "Come, 
now,  and  let  us  reason  together,"  saith  the  Lord.  Thus 
men  are  laid  under  obligation  to  use  their  reason.  The 
human  reason,  as  God  made  it,  and  adapted  it  to  the 
purposes  of  considering  everything  that  concerns  our 
welfare  on  earth,  —  wherefore  should  it  not  be  carried 
up  and  brought  to  bear  upon  tliose  things  which  relate 
to  our  eternal  welfare  ?  May  we  not  reasonably  say  that 
the  human  reason  must  be  employed,  directly,  ,in  our 
judgment  of  divine  truths,  so  far  as  they  are  brought 
to  us  ?  It  is  safer  to  say  that  than  to  deny  it.  You  are 
to  take  care  and  not  fall  into  the  imperfections  to  which 
the  human  reason  may  lead ;  you  are  to  guard  against 
the  liabilities  to  error  which  accompany  its  use;  but 
you  are  not  to  deny  the  necessity  of  using  it.  Those 
imperfections  and  liabilities  may  be  allowed  for,  may 
be  accounted  for,  but  the  loss  which  would  result 
from  not  using  it  cannot  be  made  up.  And  if  you  use 
it  for  the  consideration  of  divine  themes,  saying  to 
yourself  all  the  time  that  you  do  not  use  it,  you  have 
all  the  mischiefs  to  which  the  use  of  it  renders  you  lia- 
ble, and  you  have  them  in  reduplicated  forms. 

If,  then,  you  say  that  we  must  not  mix  philosophy 
with  pure  heavenly  intelligence  as  it  is  revealed  in  the 
Word  of  God,  I  say  that  no  man  does  read  the  Word 
of  God  without  bringing  his  philosophy  to  it. 

Thus  you  will  make  life  and  fact  an  interpreter. 


52 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


Thus  you  will  keep  Bible-truth  down  close  to  human 
consciousness.  It  is  not  by  bringing  into  the  class-room 
reason,  experience,  those  things  which  belong  to  the 
great  community,  and  making  them  instruments  for 
interpreting  the  Bible,  that  we  change  the  proportions 
and  the  emphasis  of  truth ;  it  is  by  such  a  use  of  the 
Bible  in  the  class-room  as  makes  it  a  subject  of  dry 
philosophy,  unleavened  in  its  form  and  structure  by 
the  recognized  human  element  which  it  unsuccessfully 
attempts  to  shut  out,  that  we  are  likely  to  do  it  vio- 
lence. 

But  no  man  ought  to  suppose  that  by  his  reason,  or  by 
the  collective  reason  of  mankind,  will  ever  be  brought 
out  and  rendered  plain  the  full  of  all  that  belongs  to 
the  germinal  statements  of  Scripture.  I  take  a  single 
element,  —  "  God  is  love."  Now,  I  say  that  when  you 
take  that  text  and  announce  it,  you  are  like  a  man 
who  puts  his  foot  on  a  ship,  and  starts  out  on  the 
Atlantic  Ocean,  with  the  determination  that  he  will 
know  the  depth  at  every  point,  and  every  curve  of  the 
shore,  around  and  around  the  globe.  He  has  work  for 
a  life  before  him.  Consider  any  form  of  love  that  you 
ever  knew.  Where  is  there  in  a  word  anything  that 
can  represent  the  inflammation,  the  fruitfulness,  the 
fire,  of  that  feeling,  shooting  every  whither,  like  an 
auroral  light  by  night,  or  like  the  sunlight  by  day  ? 
Who  can  express  it  by  a  word,  or  any  number  of 
words  ?  Sing  your  sonnet,  make  your  poem,  write 
your  descriptive  letter ;  but  after  all,  the  pure  loving 
heart,  that  has  had  the  dream  of  love  all  night  and  the 
vision  of  it  all  day,  has  had  more  experience  of  it  than 
the  whole  of  human  language  can  ever  put  together. 


HOW  TO  USE  THE  BIBLE. 


53 


The  thing  transcends  all  bounds  of  expression,  and  is 
immensely  larger  than  any  words  can  make  it,  even 
on  earth  and  among  men  ;  and  oh  !  what  must  it  be 
when  you  raise  it  to  the  proportions  and  the  power  of 
the  Infinite,  —  when  it  is  not  simply  love  as  conceived 
of  in  the  fallible  human  soul,  but  when  it  is  love  as  it 
exists  in  the  Divine  nature  ?  The  qualities  of  divinity 
reach  so  high,  they  are  so  far  beyond  the  power  of  our 
feeble  minds  to  conceive,  they  are  so  vast,  and  they 
penetrate  so  deep  into  the  recesses  of  infinity,  that 
when  we  contemplate  them,  we  say,  as  Paul  said 
after  his  most  rapturous  life  and  most  glorious  experi- 
ence, "  For  now  we  see  through  a  glass,  darkly ;  but 
then  face  to  face :  now  I  know  in  part ;  but  then  shall 
I  know  even  as  also  I  am  known." 

RELATIVE  VALUE  OF  BIBLE  DOCTRINES. 

A  great  many  doctrines  that  are  contained  in  the 
Bible,  and  that  are  supposed  to  be  of  the  most  tran- 
scendent importance,  men  regard  as  important  only  on 
account  of  their  structural  relation  to  the  systems  of 
which  they  are  a  part.  There  are  a  great  many  things 
in  the  Bible  which,  in  and  of  themselves,  are  regarded 
as  of  very  little  consequence,  but  which  in  their  con- 
nection with  other  things  are  considered  of  very  great 
moment.  For  instance,  the  Apostle  sets  forth  how  to 
make  a  man  of  God  perfect,  thoroughly  furnished  for 
every  good  work.  There  are  those  who  take  exception 
to  his  teaching  on  that  subject,  and  treat  it  as  of  little 
or  no  account ;  but  the  theologian  says,  If  you  do  not 
hold  that,  what  becomes  of  this,  that,  or  the  other 
point  in  your  system  ?    There  will  be  a  screw  loose 


54 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


when  that  is  left  out."  And  so  men  hold  one  or 
another  doctrine  because  they  think  it  is  important 
to  the  cohesion  and  efficient  working  of  the  dif- 
ferent portions  of  their  system.  This  axle  is  con- 
nected with  that  wheel  out  yonder,  and  that  wheel 
carries  another  wheel,  and  that  another ;  and  the  action 
of  every  part  depends  upon  the  action  of  every  other 
part ;  and  so  it  is  deemed  indispensable  that  every  part 
should  be  kept  intact :  and  men's  theological  reasonings 
are  carried  on  accordingly.  Doctrines  are  largely  val- 
ued with  reference  to  their  connections  with  other  doc- 
trines. The  result  is  that  systems  of  theology  become 
more  important  in  men's  estimation  than  the  Bible  it- 
self, and  more  important  than  the  souls  of  men  for  whose 
benefit  it  was  given  to  the  w^orld.  A  great  many  men 
preach  "  for  the  sake  of  the  truth,  the  truth,"  they 
will  tell  you ;  whereas,  I  supposed  tliat  men  preached 
for  the  salvation  of  their  fellow-men.  "  You  must  not 
give  up  God's  truth,"  they  say,  when  you  puzzle  them. 
When  you  say  to  them,  "  What  is  the  use  of  such  a 
view  ?  what  fruit  comes  of  it  ?  what  good  does  it  do  ? " 
and  they  are  perplexed,  they  say,  "  Ah !  it  is  taught, 
and  it  must  be  maintained."  And  then  there  is  a  roll- 
call,  and  those  texts  are  trotted  out  which  are  supposed 
to  teach  that  view.  Men  are  afraid  that  if  they  give 
up  this  or  that  truth  of  dogma,  the  foundation  will  be 
taken  out  from  under  their  system,  and  they  will  haA  e 
nothing  to  stand  on.  So,  as  men  do  not  agree  in  all 
the  doctrines  which  sTiould  constitute  a  true  tlieological 
system,  we  have  Arminianism,  and  Pelagianism,  and 
Semi-Pelagianism,  and  Demi-semi-Pelagianism.  Men 
are  divided  in  reference  to  the  various  doctrines  of 


HOW  TO  USE  THE  BIBLE. 


55 


religion,  some  denying  those  that  are  held  by  others, 
and  some  giving  more  emphasis  to  certain  ones  than 
others  do,  where  they  are  held  in  common ;  and  they 
lose  sight  of  the  fact  that  the  value  of  God's  truth  con- 
sists in  its  power  of  carrying  salvation  to  men.  Paul, 
you  remember,  said,  "  I  determined  not  to  know  any- 
thing among  you  save  [he  ought  to  have  said  the 
Old  Testament  Scriptures,  but  he  did  not]  Jesus  Christ." 
No,  that  was  not  what  he  said :  he  said,  I  determined 
not  to  know  anything  among  you  save  Jesus  Christ,  — 
and  him  crucified  !  "  What  a  horror  it  was  to  those  who 
held  the  Greek  idea  of  God  to  be  told  that  he  should  be 
susceptible  of  crucifixion  !  and  what  a  horror  it  was  to 
those  in  whom  the  Jewish  prejudices  were  strong,  to 
be  told  that  their  Messiah  could  be  whelmed  in  dis- 
grace, could  be  put  to  death,  and  could  be  inclosed  in 
a  sepulcher !  And  yet  Paul  would  not  equivocate  to 
them,  and  he  said,  I  did  not  come  to  preach  to  you 
old  ceremonials  or  old  laws,  however  good ;  I  came  to 
present  Christ  to  you  in  the  most  offensive  way  that 
he  can  be  presented."  That  was  the  best  way  in  which 
he  could  lift  them  out  of  their  mere  physical  idea  of 
God,  and  therefore  he  would  not  abandon  it. 

SELECTION  OF  DOCTRINE  FOR  PREACHING. 

This  change  of  emphasis  and  proportion  in  truth  opens 
a  very  wide  field  for  investigation,  and  perhaps  it  better 
becomes  an  essay  than  a  lecture ;  so  I  will  only  an- 
nounce it,  and  say  that  in  your  career  in  the  seminary 
it  is  worth  your  while  to  learn  all  the  doctrines  of 
the  Bible  as  they  are  related  to  theological  systems  ; 
but  that  when  you  come  to  preach  you  will  certainly 


56 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


very  soon  sift  what  you  know,  or  what  you  think 
you  know ;  and  you  will  find  that  one  and  another 
thing  which  never  seemed  of  much  importance  in 
the  lecture-room  are  beginning  to  be  very  important 
in  your  regard.  In  other  words,  if  you  are  true  men, 
and  if  you  go  out  into  the  world  to  preach,  with 
the  idea  that  Christianity  is  the  work  of  creating 
divine  manhood  among  men,  that  it  is  the  work  of 
bringing  the  power  of  God  to  bear,  through  the  truth, 
upon  human  nature,  then,  in  spite  of  yourself,  you 
will  take  the  things  which  strike  the  most  directly 
at  men's  interior  natures,  and  obliterate  their  preju- 
dices, and  draw  forth  their  sympathies,  and  bring  them 
higher  and  higher  toward  God,  along  new  lines  of 
interpretation  and  measurement  and  criticism.  There 
will  be  this  or  that  doctrine  that  you  deemed  of  very 
great  importance,  and  that  you  tliouglit  you  would 
preach  about,  but  that  somehow  or  other  you  do  not  get 
a  chance  to  take  up. 

You  will  find  old  men  who  will  say  to  you,  "  Sir,  you 
should  give  to  every  man  his  portion  in  due  season." 
Yes,  you  should ;  but  it  does  not  follow  that  you  should 
give  to  every  man  something  of  everything  as  being  his 
portion.  Every  mother  gives  to  her  child  its  milk  in 
due  season,  as  its  portion  ;  but  she  does  not  give  roast 
beef  to  the  babe  on  her  bosom.  Every  physician  gives 
to  each  patient  under  his  care  his  portion  of  medicine 
in  due  season,  but  he  does  not  give  to  all  his  patients 
the  same  medicine.  He  may  not  give  in  one  family,  as 
long  as  he  lives,  that  which  he  is  continually  giving  in 
another  family.  One  disease  requires  one  sort  of  treat- 
ment^ and  another  disease  another  sort.  Sometimes 


HOW  TO  USE  THE  BIBLE. 


57 


astringents  are  necessary,  and  sometimes  emollients. 
Here  stimulants  are  needful,  and  there  sedatives.  The 
kinds  of  medicine  which  shall  be  given  are  determined 
by  the  condition  of  the  patient. 

Now,  it  is  said,  "  You  must  give  men  the  whole  sys- 
tem of  God's  moral  government  in  the  universe";  but  I 
say  that  it  is  not  all  in  the  Bible.  It  is  not  discovered 
yet.  Some  of  the  elements  of  it  are  there,  but  not  all 
of  them.  The  whole  system  of  God's  moral  govern- 
ment has  not  been  disclosed.  It  may  be  thought  pre- 
sumptuous to  say  so,  but  it  is  true.  And  I  say,  further, 
that  it  is  not  the  rule  of  the  Bible  to  undertake  to 
disclose  the  whole  of  the  royalty  of  the  Divine  govern- 
ment, or  of  the  Divine  nature.  You  cannot  find  out 
these  things  to  perfection. 

What,  then,  are  you  to  do  ?  You  are  to  use  the  truth 
of  God  as  you  would  use  materials  for  erecting  a  build- 
ing, not  all  at  once,  but  in  their  proper  order.  The 
growth  of  manhood  is  not  instantaneous,  but  gradual. 
The  developing  of  a  man  in  holy  faith  is  a  work  into 
which  enter  the  elements  of  selection,  proportion,  em- 
phasis, and  frequency. 

THE  preacher's  BIBLE. 

This  would  naturally  lead  me  to  speak,  though  I 
need  not,  of  the  preacher's  Bible,  which  is  really  the 
combination  of  the  other  two.  The  Bible  of  the 
preacher  may  be,  and  ought  to  be,  the  Bible  of  the 
class-room,  but  it  must  be  especially  a  personal,  private 
Bible.  No  man  is  fit  to  preach  who  has  not  felt  his 
own  need  of  the  Bible,  or  of  the  truths  that  are  in  it. 
No  man  is  fit  to  preach  whose  garments  do  not  smell 

3* 


58 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


of  the  fire  of  agony.  Spurzheim  said,  No  woman  is  fit 
to  be  married  who  has  not  seen  great  affliction."  That 
is  the  intensive  form  in  which  he  expressed  his  judgment 
as  to  the  benefits  of  the  ripening  influence  of  sorrow. 

A  young  man  who  goes  out  to  preach  is  never  or- 
dained when  the  consecrating  hand  has  been  laid  on 
his  head,  and  he  has  entered  upon  the  ministry.  The 
ceremony  of  ordination  is  very  well  as  far  as  it  goes  : 
but  not  until" the  providence  of  God  has  put  its  hand 
upon  you;  not  until  you  have  ached  and  wept  and 
prayed  in  secret  places ;  not  until  you  have  realized 
your  weakness  and  un worthiness,  and  said,  "Would 
God  that  I  were  dead  "  ;  not  until  you  have  felt  tliat 
your  appareling  is  as  nothing ;  not  until  with  unutter- 
able desire  you  have  turned  to  God  with  the  meekness 
and  humility  and  gentleness  and  sweetness  of  a  child, 
and  been  conscious  that  you  were  carried  in  the  arms 
of  his  love,  —  not  until  then  will  you  be  fully  ordained. 
But  when  you  have  had  this  administration,  how 
blessed  the  Word  of  God  will  be  to  you  !  It  may  be 
that  you  will  not  want  to  read  some  parts  of  it :  the 
mother  does  not  sing  everything  that  there  is  in  the 
music-book  ;  she  sings  those  tunes  which  are  sweetest 
to  her  children  and  to  herself ;  and  so  you  will  read 
those  portions  of  the  Bible  which  are  appropriate  to 
your  need.  You  will  each  get  from  that  beautiful 
tree,  the  Word  of  God,  such  fruit  as  you  require  for 
your  consolation  and  encouragement  in  life,  and  for 
your  up-building  in  righteousness. 

You  will  have  your  private  Bible  from  which  you 
will  derive  light  and  food  and  comfort  according  to 
circumstances  ;  then  you  will  have  your  Bible  of  the 


HOW  TO  USE  THE  BIBLE. 


59 


class-room,  by  the  aid  of  which  you  will  attempt  to 
bring  under  one  comprehensive  arrangement  of  suc- 
cessional  development  the  principal  ideas  which  per- 
tain to  God  and  his  relations  to  mankind,  —  always 
understanding  that  ''we  see  through  a  glass,  darkly"; 
and  at  last  you  will  come  to  the  preacher's  Bible  itself, 
with  all  its  vast  resources,  from  which  you  will  take 
truths  that  are  good  for  your  own  soul  and  for  other 
men's  souls,  that  you  may  bring  them,  with  all  the  vigor 
and  unction  and  emotion  which  comes  from  your  per- 
sonal participation  in  them,  home  to  the  salvation  of 
men.  When  you  have  the  preacher's  Bible,  you  have 
that  which  is  like  a  living  power,  and  you  are  a  trum- 
pet, and  the  life  of  God  is  behind  you,  so  that  the  words 
which  come  from  you  are  breathed  by  him. 


III. 

THE  TEUE  METHOD  OF  PEESENTING  GOD. 

February  18,  1874. 
THE  GREAT  COMMANDMENT. 

E  often  lose  the  importance  of  the  sayings 
of  the  New  Testament  by  familiarity  with 
them.  I  am  sure  no  man  can  adequately 
understand  (so  great  is  it)  the  declaration 
of  our  Saviour, "  Thou  shalt  love  the  Lord  thy  God  with 
all  thy  heart,  and  with  all  thy  soul,  and  with  all  thy 
streiJgth,  and  with  all  thy  mind."  Although  no  famil- 
iarity can  quite  stale  that,  yet,  having  heard  it  from  our 
childhood,  and  slid  over  it  unthinkingly,  we  may  not 
see  it  opening  itself  up  in  such  a  w^ay  as  to  show  all  the 
avenues  of  meaning  w^hich  are  really  in  it. 

In  the  first  place,  it  is  very  remarkable  how  intense 
is  the  homage,  and  indeed  what  is  the  kind  of  homage, 
which  is  required.  It  is  not  obedience  simply ;  it  is  not 
awe  ;  it  is  not  admiration  ;  it  is  love, —  the  deepest,  the 
strongest,  the  most  comprehensive  of  all  human  ex- 
periences. Nor  is  it  merely  a  love  which  acts  mildly. 
The  cumulation  of  phrase  upon  phrase,  which  we  find 
employed  in  that  command,  shows  the  weakness  of 
language,  and  the  strength  of  the  thing  to  be  expressed. 


THE  TRUE  METHOD  OF  PRESENTING  GOD.  61 

It  is  a  love  that  is  to  be  made  up  of  all  that  there  is 
in  man. 

And  this  is  not  all ;  we  are  to  consider  that  this  love 
is  to  be  expressed  not  toward  our  lather,  not  toward 
our  mother,  not  toward  our  natural  kindred ;  that  it  is 
not  to  run  out  througli  the  open  avenues  of  friendship ; 
but  that  it  is  to  ^be  directed  toward  a  great  invisible 
Being,  whom  the  eye  never  saw,  whom  the  ear  never 
heard,  whom  the  hand  never  grasped.  That  invisible 
presence  named  "God"  is  to  be  the  object  of  the  strong- 
est affection  of  which  the  human  mind  is  capable. 
Now,  when  we  think  how  hard  it  is  for  men  to  adapt 
themselves  to  duties  that  are  visible,  or  to  yield  to 
influences  that  carry  with  them  collateral  motives  and 
incitements,  we  may  well  suppose  that  it  would  be  hard 
for  them  to  make  an  invisible  Presence,  who  does  not 
address  himself  to  us  through  any  of  the  ordinary  chan- 
nels of  tlie  human  mind,  the  object  of  such  overpower- 
ing affection  as  this. 

There  is  another  consideration.  Not  only  is  this  the 
command  of  God  in  the  incarnated  Christ  eTesus,  but  we 
are  to  add  his  declaration  that  around  about  it  cling 
the  whole  of  the  Old  Testament  Scriptures.  When 
unfolded  they  surround  this  great  Center.  Such  was 
their  meaning,  as  they  were  interpreted  in  the  ancient 
day.  All  the  prophets  and  early  WTiters  and  law- 
givers of  the  Hebrews  meant  but  this  :  "  Thou  shalt  love 
the  Lord  thy  God  with  all  thy  heart,  and  with  all  thy 
soul,  and  with  all  thy  strength,  and  with  all  thy  mind ; 
and  thy  neighbor  as  thyself,"  —  the  two  great  divisions 
of  the  command. 


62 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING, 


THE  OBJECTS  OF  PREACHING. 

Now,  if  this  is  the  great  central  idea,  then  the  preach- 
ing of  God  is  tlie  foundation  of  all  pulpit  instruction 
and  of  all  true  systems  of  religion,  and  in  preaching 
this  you  will  strike  the  central  source  of  power.  If, 
therefore,  a  man  is  to  preach  well,  it  is  not  enough  for 
him  to  preach  duties  and  relations ;  it  is  not  enough 
for  him  to  preach  the  analysis  of  human  thought  and 
feeling  ;  it  is  not  enough  for  him  to  preach  all  the  in- 
flections of  experience  in  human  life  :  there  must  be 
such  a  development  of  the  Divine  as  shall  make  itself 
the  center  of  tlie  preacher's  power. 

And  take  note  tliat,  in  developing  the  character  of 
God,  it  is  not  enougli  for  you  to  unfold  a  character  that 
is  strong,  and  just,  and  wise.  You  must  so  present  the 
idea  of  God  as  to  make  men  love  him.  And  althoue^h 
you  may  plead  tliat  the  carnal  man  has  no  aptitude 
by  nature  for  the  comprehension  of  divine  things ; 
though  you  may  plead  that  there  are  traits,  attributes, 
qualities,  in  the  Divine  nature,  and  features  in  the 
Divine  government,  which  will  naturally  repel  selfish- 
ness and  pride  in  man  (all  of  which  is  true,  —  more  true 
than  we  can  imagine),  nevertheless,  the  Divine  charac- 
ter is  altogether  lovely ;  and  there  are  corresponding 
traits  in  man  which  stand  over  against  every  one  of  its 
great  elements.  It  is  in  the  power  of  man  to  come 
into  sympathy  with  them.  There  are  adaptations  in 
him  which,  when  quickened  by  the  effluent  Spirit  of 
God,  draw  him  toward  that  Spirit.  There  are  in  the 
human  mind  predispositions  and  powers  which  adapt 
it  to  an  experience  of  the  feeling  of  love  to  God.  That 


THE  TRUE  METHOD  OF  PRESENTING  GOD.  G3 

men  do  not  often  use  these,  and  that  they  cannot  easily 
use  them,  does  not  touch  the  question ;  for,  under  the 
influence  of  the  Divine  Spirit  which  goes  with  your 
work  of  preaching,  there  is  that  in  man  which  enables 
him  to  see  and  to  love  what  is  lovely  in  God. 

Preaching,  then,  has  a  twofold  object :  namely,  to 
develop  the  character  of  God  so  as,  first,  to  make  men 
see  how  unlovely  is  the  manner  of  their  own  life  ;  and 
then  to  attract  them  and  inspire  them  with  aspiration 
toward  the  loveliness  of  the  Divine.  And  I  shall  speak 
to  you  this  afternoon  especially  on  the  subject  of  preach- 
ing God,  or,  more  explicitly,  on  the  subject  of  the  true 
mode  of  presenting  the  nature  of  God  to  men  so  that 
they  may  understand  it  and  love  it. 

men's  ideas  of  god  :  THE  TRUE  LOVERS. 

When  you  go  into  your  respective  parishes,  it  will 
not  do  for  you  to  take  your  own  class-feeling  along 
with  you.  It  will  not  do  for  you  to  take  it  for  granted, 
unthinkingly,  that  everybody  has  about  your  state  of 
mind  in  regard  to  God.  It  becomes  a  part  of  your 
duty,  if  you  are  a  wise  pastor,  to  investigate  and  find 
out  just  what  is  the  condition  of  those  among  whom 
you  are  to  labor.  I  think  your  experience  will  be 
about  this,  in  ordinary  parishes  :  you  will  find,  first,  a 
rare  few  who  love  with  a  love  which  really  overmas- 
ters every  other  feeling,  —  which,  like  sunlight,  shines 
down  and  gives  color  to  every  other  affection,  sur- 
rounding all,  penetrating  all,  mounting  higher  than  all, 
and  making  itself  the  center  of  life,  —  natures  that 
have  this  true  appreciation  of  God,  bear  it  about  with 
them  day  and  night,  and  can  say,    Lord,  whom  have  I 


64 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


in  heaven  but  thee  ?  and  who  is  there  on  earth  that  I 
desire  in  comparison  with  thee  ? " 

There  are  persons  whose  thought  of  God  is  perpetual 
music  to  them.  In  the  morning,  at  noontide,  and  in 
the  evening,  they  are  still  with  God.  Their  thoughts 
rise  as  naturally  to  him  as  vapors  rise  to  the  drawing 
of  the  sun.  The  number  of  these,  however,  is  very, 
very  small ;  and  they  are  found  mostly  among  women, 
or  among  men  in  whom  the  emotional  or  woman-natul-e 
is  large.  They  are  not  often  found  among  practical 
men,  or  men  of  a  speculative  turn  of  mind.  Once  in  a 
while,  in  a  rare  case,  like  that  of  ejonathan  Edwards, 
who  possessed  a  comprehensive,  specidative  nature, 
there  is  that  experience  of  the  recognition  of  the  Di- 
vine, the  ever-presence  of  God,  which  enables  one  to 
say  that  all  his  life  long  he  has  walked  with  God  ;  but 
as  I  have  already  said,  such  cases  are  very  infrequent. 

CONVENTIONALISTS. 

You  will  find,  next,  a  great  many  who  will  talk  as  if 
they  had  this  experience,  and  perhaps  even  think  they 
have,  while  they  have  it  not ;  that  is  to  say,  there 
springs  up,  under  the  constant  ministration  of  the  gos- 
pel, a  peculiar  form  of  conventionalism,  such  that 
persons,  who  know  what  their  duty  is,  talk  as  if  the 
fulfillment  of  that  known  duty,  after  which  they  are 
striving,  were  their  actual  condition,  "  with  such  quali- 
fications and  limitations,  of  course,  as  belong  to  poor 
human  nature,"  they  say.  If  you  scrutinize  and  go 
behind  the  conventional  expressions  which  are  used, 
you  will  generally  find  that  in  those  who  even  honestly 
use  them  there  is  no  such  sense  of  an  ever-present  God, 


THE  TRUE  METHOD  OF  PRESENTING  GOD.  65 

in  beauty  and  glory,  as  really  fires  and  fills  their  souls, 
and  illumines  their  experience. 

GENERAL  BELIEVERS. 

Next,  you  will  find  (and  in  larger  numbers)  those 
who  have  an  intellectual  conception  of  God,  —  well- 
educated  men  and  women,  —  who  now  and  then  are 
kindled  into  a  glow  by  that  conception  ;  who,  under 
the  excitement  of  special  griefs  and  sorrows,  or  under 
the  stimulus  of  peculiar  joys,  or  under  the  influence  of 
protracted  meetings  or  other  unusual  occasions,  or  in 
consequence  of  those  rare  conjunctions  which  occur, 
and  which  light  up  everything  and  fill  everything  with 
glory,  —  as  does  this  day  from  out  of  the  bosom  of  win- 
ter, —  who,  under  such  circumstances,  they  know  not 
how  nor  why,  have  distinct  conceptions  of  God  and  of 
his  attributes,  so  co-ordinated  that  all  their  objections 
are  answered,  and  they  do  come  to  have  a  general 
faith  in  God.  But  it  is  not  a  God  present  that  they 
conceive  of.  It  is  God,  but  it  is  not  Immanuel,  —  it  is 
not  God  present  with  us.  These,  as  I  remarked,  form  a 
much  larger  class  than  the  others  of  whom  I  spoke. 

THE  RESPECTABLE  MAJORITY. 

Next  to  them  is  a  still  larger  class,  that  constitute 
the  great  middle  portion  of  society,  as  they  will  of  your 
parish,  namely,  those  who  have,  in  the  main,  only  about 
this  conception  of  God,  and  of  his  character  and  admin- 
istration :  that  there  is  the  heaven  above ;  the  earth 
beneath ;  the  succession  of  the  seasons ;  the  frame- 
work of  universal  government ;  and,  above  all  these, 
One  who  made  them,  and  wound  them  up,  and  rolled 


66 


LECTURES  ON  PKEACHING. 


them  out,  and  keeps  them  agoing,  and  takes  care  of 
them.  To  them  God  is  the  great  Functionary  of  the 
universe.  Sometimes,  in  their  estimation,  he  is  Archi- 
tect ;  he  is  Machinist,  sometimes  ;  he  is  Administrator, 
sometimes.  They  regard  him  as  the  One  who  does 
everything.  They  look  upon  him  very  much  as  we 
look  upon  the  "  government "  at  Washington,  as  having 
not  much  personality,  but  a  great  deal  of  function.  It 
seems  to  me  that  such  is  the  abiding  state  of  mind  in 
regard  to  the  Divinity  among  what  we  call  the  respect- 
able and  reasonable  class  in  the  community.  They 
have  no  great  distinctness  of  thought  concerning  God. 
They  think  of  him  as  the  performer  of  great  functions, 
rather  than  as  a  person. 

HOME-HEATHEN. 

Then  comes  the  great  under-class,  a  nebulous-minded 
people,  who  neither  know  nor  think  much  about  God. 
You  will  be  surprised  to  find  how  many  there  are  of 
them.  You  will  be  surprised  to  find  how  many  there 
are  of  them  in  New  Haven.  I  have  noticed  that  the 
worst  people  are  in  New  England,  as  well  as  the  best. 
I  have  noticed,  for  instance,  that  if  you  take  the  class 
of  skeptics,  they  are  more  malignant  and  viperous,  a 
hundred  times,  in  New  England,  than  they  are  in  New 
Orleans.  The  pressure  of  moral  feeling  is  so  great  here 
that  if  men  do  not  submit  to  it,  it  crowds  them  down, 
and  at  bottom  they  oppose  it  and  resent  it,  and  bring 
against  it  everything  that  is  hard  in  New  England 
resistance.  There  is  an  intensity  and  vitality  to  their 
opposition  which  is  fearful,  sometimes. 

Then  there  is  also  an  ignorance  in  New  England,  I 


THE  TRUE  METHOD  OF  PRESENTING  GOD.  67 


think,  such  as  you  will  hardly  find  anywhere  else.  It 
may  not  be  so  right  where  you  live,  nor  just  where 
your  mission  school  is,  perhaps ;  but  not  far  from  your 
vicinity  it  is  so.  If  you  search  all  the  neighborhood 
around,  you  will  find  men  that  are  ignorant  enough. 
You  do  not  need  to  go  a  great  way  from  home  to  be 
among  the  heathen.  If  you  take  the  trouble  to  look  up 
those  who  are  degraded,  and  you  regard  every  man  in 
the  township  as  worthy  of  your  acquaintance,  and  you 
gauge  him,  and  sound  his  intellectual  state  and  moral 
consciousness,  and  find  what  level  he  stands  on,  you 
will  be  astonished  at  the  number  of  those  who  live  not 
only  without  hope,  but  literally  without  God  in  the 
world. 

Here,  then,  is  your  work  laid  out  for  you  as  a 
preacher  of  the  gospel.  You  may  have  a  primary  rela- 
tion to  the  Church  ;  but  no  matter  what  community 
you  are  settled  in,  you  are  settled  for  the  sake  of  that 
community  ;  and  you  are  to  bear  your  distributive  part 
of  the  labor  which  needs  to  be  performed  outside  of 
church  walls.  You  are  to  preach  the  great  central 
truth  of  the  universe  of  God  so  that  it  shall  be  made 
known  to  the  ignorant,  and  be  made  more  intelligible 
to  those  who  know  him  already,  although  you  can  be 
but  an  auxiliary  to  those  Hvho  have  an  intellectual  con- 
ception of  the  Divine  nature.  You  have  an  important 
work  in  preaching  to  those  who  think  of  God  merely 
in  his  functions  ;  but  still  more  important  is  your  work 
in  behalf  of  that  great  under-class  which  represents,  I 
might  almost  say,  the  detritus  of  society. 


68 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


HOW  TO  PREACH  GOD. 

I  merely  allude  to  these  things.  The  question  which 
I  purpose  to  discuss  this  afternoon  is,  simply:  How 
shall  the  character  of  God  be  presented,  not  to  your- 
selves, hut  to  others,  in  such  a  way  that  they  shall 
accept  this  great  ideal,  this  invisible  fact,  this  truth, 
which  lies  outside  of  the  sphere  of  the  ordinary  senses  ? 
That  is  a  theme  which  is  worth  your  pondering. 

HIS  PERSONALITY  TO  BE  REALIZED. 

A  personal  sense  of  God,  then,  you  are  to  beget 
among  the  people  of  your  charge. 

In  doing  this,  you  are  to  bear  in  mind  that  in  moral 
things,  as  in  esthetics,  as  in  mathematics,  as  in  poetry, 
as  in  oratory,  as  in  any  department  in  which  the  mind 
acts,  men  have  different  degrees  of  recipiency.  That 
which  is  easy  for  one  man  is  often  very  difficult  for 
another,  owing  to  the  difference  in  their  framework, 
or  else  owing  to  depravities  by  which  the  moral  sense 
has  been  lowered  in  tone  or  almost  obliterated.  There- 
fore, you  will  succeed  almost  without  effort  with  some 
while  you  will  succeed  with  others  only  by  very  great 
labor.    With  many  the  task  will  be  long  and  severe. 

You  should  not  go  into  this  work  with  the  conscious- 
ness that  you  are  to  get  up  a  series  of  sermons,  say,  on 
the  attributes  of  God,  discussing  first  all  his  natural 
attributes,  and  secondly,  all  his  moral  attributes,  for 
you  may  preach  on  the  natural  and  moral  attributes 
of  God,  and  not  preach  God  at  all.  If  you  were  to 
go  into  the  consideration  of  the  Divine  attributes  you 
would  have  so  many  discussions  of  so  many  questions 


THE  TRUE  METHOD  OF  PRESENTING  GOD.  69 

of  mental  philosophy  that  you  would  fail  to  unfold 
the  idea  of  a  present  God,  of  whom  these  are  economic 
elements.  Your  task  is  not  alone,  as  you  will  see,  to 
discuss  those  qualities  which  belong  to  the  universal 
mind,  but  to  succeed  in  presenting  this  abstract,  ideal 
Being  in  such  a  way  that  he  shall  be  a  real  Being  to 
those  who  hear  you. 

HIS  EXISTENCE  NOT  TO  BE  ARGUED. 

I  have  not,  therefore,  much  opinion  of  attempts  to 
prove  the  existence  of  God.  I  doubt  whether  any  man 
will  ever  be  won  from  skepticism  by  having  the  exist- 
ence of  God  proved  to  him.  I  doubt  it  because  I  doubt 
whether  the  evidence  of  God's  existence  comes  to  our 
sensuous  reason.  If  it  does,  I  think  it  comes  remotely, 
and  as  an  auxiliary  to  an  impression  that  has  already 
been  established  on  other  grounds.  My  own  feeling  is 
that  you  may  very  safely  assume  the  existence  of  God, 
and  that,  having  assumed  it,  your  chief  work  in  this 
direction  will  be  to  illustrate  the  Divine  nature.  There 
is  at  the  bottom  a  moral  consciousness  in  mankind  such 
that  when  you  shall  have  skillfully  and  correctly  un- 
folded the  true  character  of  God,  especially  as  pertain- 
ing to  personality,  the  mind  will  naturally  accept  it. 

There  is  no  use  of  demonstrating  to  men  that  there 
is  music  in  one  of  Mozart's  or  Beethoven's  symphonies. 
Play  it,  and  I  will  defy  them  to  get  rid  of  saying  that 
there  is  music  in  it.    They  recognize  it  at  once. 

You  may  fail  to  demonstrate  by  logical  argument 
that  you  are  good-natured;  but  if  you  stay  with  an 
ugly  man  all  day,  and  never  lose  your  temper,  and 
repay  sweetness  for  sourness^  and  kindness  for  unkind- 


70 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


ness,  he  will  be  obliged  to  acknowledge  that  you  are 
good-natured.  You  could  not  prove  to  him  in  words 
that  you  had  a  good-natured  disposition,  but  he  could 
not  resist  the  conviction  that  you  had,  if  you  were  in 
his  presence,  and  were  uniformly  good-natured. 

There  is  such  a  thing  as  the  action  of  being  on  being. 
We  recognize  it  in  lower  life ;  and  my  belief  is,  that  it 
belongs  still  more  essentially  to  the  higher  life.  When 
the  being  of  God  itself  is  unfolded  by  the  Divine  Spirit, 
and  made  luminous,  there  is  a  moral  consciousness  in 
the  mind  of  man  which  cannot  help  responding.  I 
believe  that  this  moral  consciousness  is  universal,  and 
that  in  the  presence  of  it  argument  falls  to  the  ground 
as  needless. 

I  have,  besides  this,  a  conviction  that  Mdthout  a 
proper  appeal  to  this  moral  consciousness,  the  mere  in- 
tellect being  addressed,  arguments  to  prove  that  there 
is  a  God  will  have  no  more  effect  than  hailstones  on 
Gibraltar. 

There  is  no  objection  to  a  man's  arguing  the  subject 
of  the  existence  of  God  from  the  pulpit,  if  he  is  pretty 
sure  that  his  people  believe  it ;  but  unless  he  knows 
that  it  is  an  accepted  truth  among  them,  I  would  ad- 
vise him  not  to  argue  it.  As  has  been  said  by  Jou- 
bert  (whose  ' wisdom  is  of  a  high  order,  and  whose 
writings  I  wish  could  be  translated),  there  is  danger  of 
exciting  unbelief  by  attempting  to  argue  things  which 
are  not  within  the  sphere  of  argument,  the  effect  being 
to  stir  up  combativeness  in  men,  and  the  gladiatorial 
spirit.  A  man  may  be  led  to  meet  your  arguments, 
—  by  which,  as  it  were,  you  defy  investigation,  —  with 
a  skepticism  which  otherwise  would  slumber, 


THE  TRUE  METHOD  OF  PRESENTING  GOD.  71 


man's  moral  need  to  be  met. 

I  would  recommend  you  not  to  attempt,  then,  unless 
you  are  pretty  sure  of  your  people,  to  argue  that  there 
is  a  God,  nor  to  attempt  to  prove  his  existence.  I 
should  assume  it,  always.  But  there  should  be  a  pres- 
entation of  God  which  should  meet  that  moral  con- 
sciousness of  which  I  have  spoken.  I  know  not  that 
I  shall  make  myself  quite  understood,  but  I  think 
there  can  be  a  presentation  of  God  made  which  all 
men's  hearts,  at  one  time  or  another,  would  crave  fer- 
vently, and  of  which  they  would  say,  "  Let  it  be  true  ! 
Let  it  be  true  !  "  I  can  conceive  of  such  a  presentation 
of  God,  as  monarchical  and  despotic,  that  all  good  men 
would  say,  0,  let  it  not  be  true  ! "  There  is  surely 
such  a  way  of  making  known  God,  in  the  Lord  Jesus 
Christ,  that  at  one  time  or  another  men  under  burdens, 
men  in  sorrow,  men  whose  hopes  have  been  blighted, 
men  who  are  without  sympathy  in  life,  lonely  men, 
troubled  men,  dissatisfied  men,  men  aching  with  pride 
and  selfishness,  —  first  or  last,  men  like  these  shall  be 
buoyed  up  by  it,  it  shall  be  to  them  like  the  coming 
on  of  spring  to  the  patient  in  her  chamber,  and  every 
aspiration  in  them  shall  say,  "  0,  let  there  be  such  a 
God  !    /  need  him.'' 

At  such  a  time  as  this,  when  science  is  tending  to 
undermine  men's  faith,  when  so  many  influences  are 
drawing  us  away  from  a  conception  of  God,  and  plant- 
ing doctrine  on  sensuous  foundations  (where  it  cannot 
be  demonstrated),  the  wise  course,  it  seems  to  me,  is  to 
lift  up  such  a  conception  of  the  Divine  nature  that 
everything  that  is  true  and  noble  in  men  shall  long  for 


72 


LECTURES  ON  PIIEACIII^^G. 


it.  God  should  be  made  so  altogether  lovely  in  the 
preacher's  presentation  of  him,  that  the  world  will  not 
consent  to  have  him  dethroned  from  their  ideas  or  from 
their  faith. 

THREE  ELEMENTS  OF  PRESENTATION. 

There  are  three  things,  then,  that  you  should  seek  to 
do  in  attempting  to  present  God  to  men  aright,  —  first, 
to  establish  his  personality ;  second,  to  illustrate  his 
disposition ;  third,  to  give  and  keep  a  sense  of  his 
presence.  These  three  elements  —  personality,  disposi- 
tion or  character,  and  ever-presence  —  it  is  important 
to  unfold,  so  that  God  shall  be  a  God  with  us,  and  not  a 
God  afar  off  from  us. 

THE  DIVINE  PERSONALITY. 

As  regards  the  Divine  personality,  I  speak  of  it  as 
distinguished,  in  the  first  place,  from  pantheism,  or 
from  those  things  which  tend  toward  an  impersonal 
God.  It  is  not  necessary  for  me  to  go  into  a  discussion 
of  the  idea  that  God  is  the  universe,  as  he  has  been 
represented  to  be.  I  only  say  that  this  idea  is  a  thing 
so  scattered,  so  absolutely  unconcentrated,  that  it  is  in 
effect  a  mere  atmosphere,  and  an  atmosphere  so  rarefied 
that  men  cannot  breathe  it.  It  is  absolutely  without 
moral  effect.  And,  although  it  may  seem  to  be  very 
harmless,  yet,  to  say  no  God  "  is  to  me  no  worse  than 
to  say  "  impersonal  God." 

Next  to  this,  I  rank  what  are  called  the  theories  of 
the  unknowable  "  in  God.  Men  hold,  almost  a  priori, 
that  the  Divine  nature  must  be  so  very  high  above 
ours,  that  it  is  not  knowable  by  us.    No  person  at  all 


THE  TRUE  METHOD  OF  PRESENTING  GOD. 


73 


instructed  in  the  Word  of  God  ever  teaches  that  we 
can  perfectly  understand  the  Almighty  ;  but  cannot 
the  human  mind  grasp  so  much  of  the  Divine  nature 
as  to  know  it  in  kind,  if  not  in  degree  ?  May  we  not 
know  the  quality  of  God's  being,  without  knowing  its 
quantity  ?  May  we  not  know  what  water  is,  when  we 
see  a  drop  ?  May  I  not  know  what  the  Atlantic  Ocean 
is  made  of,  by  seeing  a  tumblerful  of  water  ?  As  far 
as  it  goes,  a  drop  is  the  same  as  the  sea,  —  the  same,  not 
in  magnitude,  but  in  quality.  The  rill  that  comes  run- 
nin^^:  down  from  the  seams  of  the  rock,  and  the  fiowinc^ 
stream  that  helps  to  make  the  gushing  river  below,  and 
the  lake  into  which  the  river  empties,  —  all  these  are 
types  of  the  ocean ;  that  is,  they  tell  me  what  water  is. 
They  cannot  exactly  tell  me  what  shapes  it  assumes,  oi 
what  its  power  is ;  but  from  these  I  can  learn  its  con- 
stituent elements  just  as  I  could  from  the  Atlantic  it- 
self. And  although  there  is  much  that  is  unknowable 
in  regard  to  the  Divine  nature,  yet  there  are  elements 
of  it  which  may  be  known,  and  which,  being  known, 
make  it  a  power  on  the  hearts  and  consciences  of 
men. 

To  say  to  me  that  a  thing  is  of  a  different  color  from 
anything  that  we  know ;  to  tell  me  that  its  color  is 
magnificent,  but  that  it  is  not  white,  nor  black,  nor 
red,  nor  green,  nor  blue,  nor  yellow,  nor  purple  ;  to 
tell  me  that  it  comes  nearer  to  red  than  anything  else, 
but  that  it  does  not  come  near  to  that  at  all ;  to  tell 
me  that  it  comes  near  to  something  that  it  does  not 
resemble,  but  that  it  would  resemble  if  it  were  some- 
thing very  different  from  what  it  is,  —  would  be  not 
only  to  give  me  no  conception  of  the  thing,  but  to 

VOL.  III.  4 


74 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


destroy  any  conception  of  it  which  I  might  already 
have.  And  to  say  to  me  of  the  Divine  nature,  that  it 
comes  near  to  intellection,  but  that  it  is  not  intellec- 
tion ;  that  it  comes  near  to  the  will,  but  that  it  is  not 
the  will ;  that  it  comes  near  to  benevolence,  but  that 
it  is  not  benevolence,  is  to  anniliilate  my  conception 
of  that  nature.  These  terms  which  seem  to  describe 
the  Supreme  Being  to  men  have  the  effect  of  destroy- 
ing the  influence  on  their  minds  of  the  representation 
which  is  made  of  him. 

THE  USES  OF  ANALYSIS. 

Personality,  as  distinguished  from  a^bstract  analysis, 
is  one  of  the  ends  which  you  are  to  seek.  Do  not  mis- 
understand me  by  thinking  that  I  am  disposed  to  dis- 
suade you  from  a  philosophical  analysis  of  the  Divine 
nature.  It, is  a  part  of  mental  philosophy,  and  it  be- 
longs to  a  scientific  study  of  that  philosophy  ;  but  at  the 
same  time  an  analysis  of  it  takes  away  its  life-form. 

You  may  analyze  a  flower,  in  order  to  understand 
it ;  but  if  there  were  only  one  flower  in  the  universe, 
as  soon  as  you  analyzed  it  there  would  no  longer  be 
one,  —  it  would  be  gone.  If  you  take  it  to  pieces  to 
examine  it,  and  if  you  submit  it  to  the  laboratory,  you 
have  the  elements  of  it,  but  not  its  organic  structure. 
Certainly  you  have  not  its  life.  That  has  been  taken 
away  by  the  analysis.  If  there  are  plenty  of  flowers, 
and,  after  you  have  analyzed  one,  you  go  back  to  the 
life-form,  then  you  gain  ;  but  in  the  simple  analysis 
you  lose.  In  merely  analyzing  God  you  lose,  because 
you  place  him  in  the  category  of  abstract  ideas.  You 
take  away  his  vitality,  as  I  might  say,  so  that  he  is  no 


THE  TRUE  METHOD  OF  PRESENTING  GOD.  75 

more  a  Divine  Being.  Thus,  when  you  argue  that  God 
is  the  sum  of  love,  the  sum  of  benevolence,  the  sum  of 
universal  power,  you  may  properly  take  every  one  of 
those  elements  and  analyze  it ;  but  you  should  not 
deceive  yourself  by  supposing  that  in  that  way  you 
are  making  known  a  personal  God.  It  is  not  until, 
having  gone  through  the  process  of  analysis,  you  begin 
the  work  of  synthesis,  and  bring  back  these  qualities 
into  a  personal  form,  that  you  have  increased  the 
knowledge  of  men  concerning  God.  It  is  a  personal 
God,  made  up  of  these  things,  that  you  want  to  bring 
before  the  minds  of  men. 

Look  for  a  moment  at  what  would  take  place.  I  ask 
an  artist  to  paint  for  me  the  portrait  of  a  man.  I  say 
to  him :  "  I  will  describe  the  man  as  he  is,  and  I  want 
you  to  represent  him  on  canvas.  First,  he  has  a  bone 
system,  —  mark  that  down,  Mr.  Painter ;  secondly,  he 
has  a  muscular  system,  —  add  that ;  he  also  has  an 
arterial  and  venous  system,  —  add  that  too  ;  then  he 
has  a  nerve  system,  which  begins  at  the  head,  and  runs 
all  the  way  down  through  the  man,  —  put  that  in  ;  he 
has  likewise  a  forehead,  eyes,  a  nose,  a  mouth,  and 
ears, —  these  are  to  be  included."  Could  an  artist  paint 
a  portrait  from  such  an  inventory  of  qualities  ?  Could  . 
he  represent  any  part  of  a  man  who  was  described  to 
him  in  that  way  ? 

A  man  attempts  to  describe  to  me  the  woman  of  his 
love,  saying,  "  She  is  five  feet,  four  inches  high  ;  she 
has  brown  hair ;  she  has  eyes  —  two  of  them  ;  she  has  a 
nose  ;  she  has  a  mouth ;  she  has  ears ;  she  smells  with 
her  nose,  and  eats  with  her  moufh,  and  sees  with  her 
eyes,  and  hears  with  her  ears ;  she  has  feet,  and  she 


76 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


walks  on  them ;  she  has  hands,  and  she  uses  them  ;  she 
has  a  heart,  —  oh,  what  a  heart !  Do  you  wonder  that 
I  admire  her  ? 

How  vague  such  a  description  would  be  !  It  may  be 
a  very  superficial  analysis,  but  it  is  all  the  worse  if  you 
carry  it  out  a  great  way  further ;  for  analysis  is  taking 
a  thing  apart ;  it  is  taking  it  out  of  organization  and 
personality ;  and  if  you  cannot  produce  a  sense  of  per- 
sonality by  analyzing  a  human  being,  and  enumerat- 
ing his  different  parts,  do  not  think  that  by  partition- 
ing the  Divine  nature  for  the  purpose  of  making  God 
known  you  can  produce  a  sense  of  his  personality.  For 
to  say  to  me  that  God  is  wise,  and  just,  and  good,  does 
not  give  me  any  very  particular  idea  of  him. 

I  will  describe  to  you  two  men  who  are  as  different 
as  they  possibly  can  be,  —  General  Grant  and  General 
Sherman  ;  and  I  will  say  that  both  of  them  have  very 
great  fortitude,  that  both  of  them  have  very  great 
patience,  running  even  to  obstinacy ;  that  both  of  them 
have  very  sharp  and  clear  intellects  ;  that  both  of  them 
have  foresight ;  that  both  of  them  have  very  great  sym- 
pathy with  their  fellow-men  ;  that  both  of  them  are 
very  skillful ;  and  that  both  of  them  are  apt  to  be  vic- 
torious. Those  terms  describe  them  both  generically, 
and  yet  they  are  as  different  as  it  is  possible  for  them 
to  be  in  other  respects.  General  Grant  is  square,  short, 
and  thick;  and  General  Sherman  is  long,  lean,  and 
lathy.  General  Grant  is  very  taciturn ;  and  General 
Sherman  is  never  silent,  —  I  suppose  he  talks  in  his 
sleep  !  General  Grant  thinks  everything  out,  and 
General  Sherman  sees  things  by  intuition.  General 
Grant  is  secretive,  and  General  Sherman  is  open  as  a 


THE  TRUE  METHOD  OF  PRESENTING  GOD.  77 


child.  You  must  go  further  than  the  genus,  or  you  do 
not  describe  men. 

Herein  lies  one  of  the  great  mistakes  into  which 
preachers  fall.  They  do  not  produce  a  sense  of  the 
personality  of  God,  because  they  preach  analytic  views, 
analytic  views,  analytic  views,  of  God  all  the  time. 

Now,  when  you  have  indoctrinated  men,  by  analysis, 
in  the  character  of  God,  and  in  the  qualities  or  elements 
into  which  it  is  analyzed,  if  you  have  the  power,  by 
synthesis,  of  bringing  them  back  and  combining  them 
again,  that  is  all  very  well.  Or,  to  change  the  figure, 
if,  instead  of  forever  distributing  type,  you  distribute  it 
simply  because  you  wish  every  letter  to  be  in  its  proper 
department  in  order  that  it  may  be  easily  found  when 
it  is  wanted  for  new  combinations,  then  you  may  bring 
it  back,  by  composition,  and  spell  out  that  incompre- 
hensible Name  which  the  Jews  revered,  and  which  the 
Scriptures  disclosed.  For,  in  looking  at  God,  two  pro- 
cesses are  employed,  —  first,  that  of  separating  the  qual- 
ities of  his  nature,  so  that  each  shall  be  distinct  from 
every  other ;  and  secondly,  that  of  gathering  them  to- 
gether again,  and  forming  them  into  a  unit :  then  you 
have  a  Person  who  stands  out  by  himself,  and  who  can 
never  be  confounded  with  another  person. 

PERSONALITY  NOT  FUNCTIONAL  CONDITION. 

God's  personality,  too,  should  be  presented  as  dis- 
tinct from  his  functions  ;  for,  one  may  lose  entirely 
the  sense  of  the  Divine  personality,  by  turning  the 
mind,  or  having  it  turned  almost  continuously,  upon 
what  God  does,  or  what  God  says.  That  is,  if  you 
say  of  God  that  he  is  Creator,  that  he  is  Lawgiver, 


78 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


that  he  is  Upholder,  that  he  is  Judge,  that  he  is  Pun- 
isher,  you  say  only  what  has  been  said,  and  said  fitly, 
of  Jupiter,  what  has  been  said  of  Brahma,  and  what 
may  be  properly  said  of  any  semi-civilized  deity.  Such 
deities  are  conceived  of  as  having  performed  various 
essential  functions ;  and  you  cannot  bring  Jehovah  dis- 
tinctly before  the  mind  in  that  way.  You  cannot  in 
that  way  produce  a  sense  of  the  difference  between 
Jove  and  Jehovah.  It  does  not  represent  a  person 
toward  whom  one  can  fulfill  the  command,  ''Thou  shalt 
love.'' 

No  man,  I  suppose,  ever  yet  fell  in  love  with  a 
problem.  Men  may  like  problems,  but  no  man  can 
love  them.  No  man  ever  yet  fell  in  love  with  a  propo- 
sition in  mental  philosophy ;  no  man  ever  fell  in  love 
with  an  abstraction  ;  no  man  ever  fell  in  love  with  a 
conception  of  power;  but  men  fall  in  love  with  dispo- 
sitions. And  the  character  of  God  is  to  be  so  preached 
that  all  elements  of  wisdom  and  of  power  will  stand 
around  his  great  central  disposition,  which  should  make 
him  something  admirable,  to  be  thought  of,  to  be  fol- 
lowed, and  to  be  obeyed.  With  such  a  presentation  of 
God  you  can  love,  but  without  it  you  cannot  love. 

When  the  elements  of  the  Divine  nature  are  known 
and  are  brought  into  personality,  there  will  be  great 
power  in  preaching.  A  peculiarity  of  the  Bible  is,  that 
it  contains  these  elements  in  itself 

COMPLETE  CONCEPTION  OF  GOD  IMPOSSIBLE. 

I  had  occasion,  last  week,  to  call  your  attention  to 
that  character  of  God  which  is  presented  in  the  thirty- 
fourth  chapter  of  Exodus.    Another  description  of  God 


THE  TRUE  METHOD  OF  PRESENTING  GOD.  79 

is  given  in  the  Old  Testament,  which  I  think  is  ex- 
traordinary when  you  regard  the  time  in  which  it 
emerged,  namely,  the  description  which  God  gives  of 
himself.  In  one  place  he  says,  "  I  am  that  I  am "  ; 
and  in  another  place,  "  I  am  he."  Abstraction  can  be 
carried  no  further  than  it  is  carried  in  these  passages ; 
and  it  seems  to  me  something  astounding,  far  back  in 
the  time  of  that  pictorial  people,  —  that  people  of  an 
old  Semitic  language,  in  which  everything  was  graphic 
and  dramatic,  —  to  see  these  declarations  of  God :  that 
he  transcends  knowledge,  and  that  he  exists  in  his  own 
absolutely  unapproachable  totality,  as  where  he  says, 
substantially,  "  I  am  myself ;  I  am  all  that  I  am  ;  I 
am  because  I  am  ;  look  upon  me,  indescribable  and 
wonderful  past  all  pronunciation." 

Continually  there  are  such  statements,  and  others, 
declaring  that  we  cannot  know  God  unto  perfection ; 
that  he  is,  in  every  respect,  so  large  and  so  good  that 
no  man  can  rise  to  a  conception  of  him.  This  is  de- 
clared, after  the  manifestation  of  God  in  Christ  Jesus, 
and  even  down  as  late  as  the  time  of  Paul,  who  says 
that  we  can  only  see  God  as  through  a  glass,  darkly. 
We  have  the  declaration  in  the  first  Epistle  of  John, 
"  Beloved,  now  are  we  the  sons  of  God,  and  it  doth  not 
yet  appear  w^hat  we  shall  be."  In  other  words,  the 
declaration  is,  "We  are  allied  to  him  as  sons,"  and 
yet  we  have  very  little  intimation  of  what  it  is  to 
have  such  a  Father.  The  largeness  of  it,  the  fullness 
of  it,  and  the  grandeur  of  it,  transcend  our  compre- 
hension. 

Bring  me  out  of  the  Music  Hall  in  Boston,  one  by 
one,  the  magnificent  array  of  stops  in  that  great  organ, 


80 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


and  lay  them  on  the  trial-board,  and  let  a  man  blow 
every  one  of  them,  first  sounding  the  wald-flute,  next 
the  diapason,  and  then  the  others  in  their  order,  and  I 
can  form  some  imagination  of  what  the  effect  would  be 
if  they  were  all  put  together  and  sounded,  —  especially 
if  I  had  heard  other  organs ;  and  yet,  when  I  go  at  twi- 
light in  the  evening,  where  some  John  Zundel,  who 
thinks  with  his  hands,  whose  brains  run  down  to  the 
ends  of  his  fingers,  and  who  is  pouring  out,  for  his  own 
comfort  and  enjoyment,  devotional  thoughts  and  feel- 
ings through  the  tones  of  that  grand  instrument,  with 
all  its  combined  power  and  richness,  then  I  say,  in  my 
amazement,  "  Fool !  fool !  that  I  should  have  supposed 
that  I  had  ever  heard  this  organ  ! "  I  had  heard  every 
one  of  its  stops,  and  had  some  conception  of  what  it 
would  be  to  hear  them  after  they  were  put  together ; 
but  when  I  heard  them  after  they  were  put  together,  I 
found  that  the  conception  which  I  had  was  entirely  in- 
adequate. 

When  I  go  up  to  heaven,  —  if  it  please  God  to  give 
me  admission  to  his  presence,  —  I  shall  know  what 
love  is.  I  do  know  what  love  is  ;  for  is  there  no  love 
on  earth  ?  I  know  what  justice  is  ;  is  there  no  justice 
on  earth  ?  I  know  what  generosity  is  ;  is  there  no  gen- 
erosity on  earth  ?  But  when  I  stand  in  Zion,  and  be- 
fore God,  and  see  what  infinite  justice,  infinite  generos- 
ity, and  infinite  love  are,  —  when  T  see  that  they  have 
no  bounds,  no  latitude  nor  longitude,  and  that  they 
have  endless  diversities  and  combinations,  —  then  there 
will  rise  upon  my  thought  a  conception  of  God's  maj- 
esty and  riches  and  power  and  grandeur,  such  that  T 
shall  say,  "  I  have  heard  of  thee  by  the  hearing  of  the 


THE  TEUE  METHOD  OF  PRESENTING  GOD. 


81 


ear,  but  now  mine  eye  seeth  thee";  but  I  shall  not  say, 
I  repent  in  dust  and  ashes  "  ;  for  I  shall  be  lifted  up 
by  the  hand  of  God's  love,  I  shall  be  called  his  own, 
and  I  shall  be  able  to  look  him  in  the  face,  and  stand 
as  his  redeemed  child,  spirit  to  spirit.  I  do  know  much 
of  God ;  and  yet,  comparatively  speaking,  I  know  noth- 
ing of  him.  I  do  understand  God,  and  yet  he  passes 
understanding. 

So  you  shall  find  other  passages  which  go  to  show 
that  God  w^as  revealed  to  men  personally  in  those 
old  times ;  but  I  cannot  see  how  such  conceptions  of 
him  as  then  existed  came  into  their  minds  in  any  other 
way  except  by  the  infusion  of  the  Divine  Spirit.  By 
searching  we  cannot  find  out  God ;  but  we  can  find 
out  much  about  him,  —  enough  to  give  us  something  to 
worship  and  to  love. 

RICHNESS  OF  THE  BIBLE  METHOD. 

See  how  the  Bible  represents  God,  in  order  to  convey 
an  idea  of  his  personality.  See  how  he  is  brought 
down  to  our  conditions.  See  how  he  walks  and  rides. 
See  how  all  things  in  nature  are  made  to  speak  of  him. 
See  how  he  produces  on  the  minds  of  children  —  Old 
Testament  men  —  a  sense  of  his  personality. 

Let  any  man  read  the  Book  of  Isaiah  and  say,  if  he 
can,  that  there  has  not  risen  on  his  imagination  a 
most  magnificent  conception  of  a  personal  God,  which 
has  more  than  any  abstraction  or  any  metaphysical 
creation.  There  rises  a  majestic  figure  before  the 
minds  of  those  who  read  that  book,  which  fills  them 
with  a  conception  of  One  whom  they  can  adore. 

Sometimes  men  say  that  the  Old  Testament  is  worn 

4*  ^ 


82 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


out.  When  the  heavens  are  worn  out  and  men  no 
more  need  to  understand  God,  then  the  Old  Testa- 
ment may  be  worn  out,  but  not  until  then.  I  hardly 
hesitate  to  say  that  you  could  not  understand  the  New 
Testament  if  it  were  not  for  the  great  and  grand 
background  upon  which  God  stands  unfolded.  The 
Old  Testament  is  wonderfully  adapted  to  the  wants  of 
the  mind  in  childhood  and  in  the  savage  state,  and  to 
the  preparation  of  the  mind,  all  through  the  different 
stages  of  civilization,  for  the  higher  condition  of  human 
culture.  There  is  nothing  like  it.  And  it  is  a  marvel 
to  me,  being,  as  it  is,  the  work,  not  of  one  painter 
but  of  many,  and  the  illustrations  being  wrought 
out  by  one  and  another  and  another,  all  working  to- 
gether without  jar  or  discord,  and  the  result  being  a 
representation  of  a  God  so  personal  that  when  he  is 
said  to  perform  any  function  it  is  a  Person  that  is  con- 
ceived of  as  performing  that  function,  and  the  sense 
of  personality,  made  up  of  the  various  Divine  attri- 
butes, being  larger  and  more  influential  than  those 
same  attributes  taken  separately. 

The  fault  of  men  in  preaching  God  is  in  not  produ- 
cing in  their  hearers  a  sense  of  his  personality,  although 
in  the  Bible  the  representation  of  that  personality  is 
such  that,  relatively,  all  other  representations  fall  into 
insignificance  in  the  comparison. 

LEANNESS  OF  PHILOSOPHICAL  METHODS. 

Let  any  man  take  the  Old  Testament,  and  compare 
it  with  the  efforts  which  have  been  made  to  represent 
God  by  any  other  method  than  this.  I  will  not  com- 
pare it  with  the  efforts  of  pantheists,  —  for  I  will  not 


THE  TRUE  METHOD  OF  PRESENTING  OOD.  83 

^rgue  with  mists ;  but  let  any  man  compare  it  with 
the  efforts  which  have  been  made  by  Mansel.  I  do  not 
know  whether  you  have  read  his  lectures.  They  are 
admirable  ;  but  in  reading  them  I  could  not  help  feel- 
ing how  weak  they  came  out.  It  is  pitiful  to  see  how 
faint  and  feeble  is  the  result  of  the  efforts  of  a  Chris- 
tian philosopher,  who  meant  to  do  well,  in  developing 
the  unknowable. 

I  could  not  preach  any  such  God  as  he  and  others 
portray.  I  had  the  good  fortune  to  be  pitched  into 
the  ministry  headlong,  without  anything  to  do  but  to 
make  men  better,  —  for  really  my  stock  of  theology  that 
I  believed  in  was  very  small.  I  have  increased  it  very 
much  since,  but  it  was  meager  enough  then ;  and  my 
business  was  to  do  what  I  could  for  men,  and  let  the- 
ology take  care  of  itself  I  had  nothing  but  the  Bible 
to  go  to ;  and  I  remember  times  of  deep  water,  when 
I  took  what  I  could  get  out  of  the  Bible  to  help 
people  with ;  and  as  I  went  out  to  help  them,  I  felt 
something  that  demanded  an  idea  of  God ;  and  I 
fell  back  on  the  Old  Testament,  as  well  as  on  the 
New,  for  my  conceptions  ,of  him.  In  my  early  minis- 
try I  studied  to  preach  God  so  as  to  touch  the  imagi- 
nation, the  reason,  and  the  affections  of  men ;  and  I 
learned  to  have  great  respect  for  that  element  in  preach- 
hing  which  develops  steadily  and  continuously  the  attri- 
butes of  the  Divine  Being  in  such  a  way  as  to  give 
men  an  idea  of  a  Person  that  they  could  love  as  well 
as  fear. 

Now,  when  I  look  at  writers  and  scholarly  men,  and 
see  how  they  have  patched  up  their  ideas  of  the  un- 
knowable, and  how  they  have  analyzed  God,  I  feel  that 


84 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


if  I  had  to  preach  those  things  in  the  pulpit  I  would 
throw  sermon  and  book  under  the  desk,  and  would  never 
touch  them  again. 

Look  at  Herbert  Spencer's  God.  I  do  not  revile 
Herbert  Spencer ;  many  of  the  stones  that  will  shine 
out  by  and  by  in  the  completed  temple  of  God  will 
have  come  from  his  hands ;  but  I  think  his  writings 
should  be  taken  as  the  disciples  took  the  wheat,  which 
they  ate,  ruhhing  it  in  their  hands.  In  taking  his  phi- 
losophy you  have  to  take  a  great  deal  of  straw  and 
chaff,  as  well  as  much  wheat.  As  to  his  presentation 
of  God,  it  is  nothing.  It  is  exactly  what  the  annual 
joke  of  our  Professor  Snell,  in  Amherst  College,  was, 
when  he  said,  Gentlemen,  you  will  perceive  this  in- 
visible ball !  " 

And  yet,  testing  such  men  and  their  reasonings,  it  will 
be  found  that  they  are  like  the  Hirams  that  Solomon 
employed,  who  wrought  in  marble,  and  brass,  and  silver, 
and  gold,  and  ivory.  They  are  working,  each  in  his 
own  way,  on  that  building  of  God  which  is  being  car- 
ried up  through  the  ages.  If  you  look  at  that  which 
any  one  of  them  is  doing  by  himself,  it  seems  like  poor- 
ness, indeed ;  but  if  you  take  a  comprehensive  view  of 
that  which  they  are  all  doing,  you  will  be  surprised  at 
the  richness  of  it. 

SEARCH  THE  SCRIPTURES. 

Now,  there  is  nothing  that  will  fill  your  soul  like 
the  representations  of  God  in  the  Old  Testament  and 
in  the  New;  and  do  not  separate  the  Old  from  the 
New  when  you  are  studying  the  character  of  God.  You 
cannot  get  along  without  them  both.     Your  Christ 


THE  TRUE  METHOD  OF  PKESENTING  GOD.  85 

cannot  at  any  other  time  be  such  a  Christ,  nor  such 
a  representation  of  God,  as  when  you  see  the  person  of 
Jehovah  as  he  is  described  in  the  Old  Testament. 

In  preaching  God,  assume  the  truth  of  his  existence ; 
and  preach  so  that  your  people  shall  see  that  he  is  a 
living  Person,  with  whom  they  can  hold  commerce. 


IV. 


CONCEPTIONS  OF  THE  DIVINITY. 

February  19,  1874. 
PREACHING  OF  GOD,  A  SOURCE  OF  POWER. 


SPOKE  to  you  yesterday,  young  gentle- 
men,  upon  your  office  as  presenting  to  the 
minds  of  congregations  the  true  idea  of 
God.    As  that  was  said  in  Scripture  to  be 


the  center  of  all  truth,  the  starting-point  and  end, 
also,  of  revelation  itself,  so  it  must  be  the  very  center, 
and  also  the  circumference,  of  your  ministerial  work ; 
and  a  right  presentation  of  the  Divine  character  will 
fill  your  hands  with  power.  Without  that  you  may 
not  lack  power,  but  you  will  have  it  only  in  the  lower 
ranges.  I  say  this,  not  theoretically,  but  out  of  my 
own  experience.  I  came  to  the  knowledge  of  God 
stumblingly  and  gradually  ;  but  of  nothing  am  I  more 
sure  now. 

When  I  discourse  for  a  length  of  time,  analyzing 
people's  characters,  criticising  various  lines  of  their 
conduct,  and  setting  forth  the  motives  and  the  fruit  of 
right  or  wrong  doing  in  any  direction,  but  still  dealing 
with  human  nature  in  human  conditions,  at  the  first 
the  congregation  listen  with  keen  interest  and  doubtless 


CONCEPTIONS  OF  THE  DIVINITY. 


87 


with  some  profit;  but  after  a  little  time  the  interest 
falls  off.  And  this  is  because  the  themes  discussed  do 
not  rise  very  miich  above  the  lines  of  life  which  measure 
men's  lower  growth,  and  deal  with  what  may  be  called 
the  inferior  natural  laws.  But  when  from  that  level 
I  have  been  drawn  to  go  to  those  themes  which  involve 
considerations  of  the  Infinite,  of  the  Eternal,  of  God  in 
all  the  elements  which  belong  to  the  Divine  idea,  I 
have  found  a  decided  difference  of  atmosphere,  a  marked 
difference  of  power ;  and  not  only  that,  but  there  is  a 
lasting  quality,  that  inheres  in  discourses  which  deal 
largely  with  these  supereminent  topics. 

MEANING  OF  PERSONALITY. 

I  said  to  you  yesterday  afternoon  that  there  were 
three  things  which  must  be  considered  in  order  to 
rightly  instruct  your  parishioners,  namely,  the  person- 
ality of  God,  the  Divine  disposition  or  character,  and 
the  sense  of  the  ever-presence  of  God  with  men ;  and 
I  discussed,  somewhat  at  length,  the  first  of  these  ele- 
ments,—  God's  personality.  I  was  asked  at  the  close 
of  the  lecture  what  I  meant  by  personality.  I  said  I 
would  answer  that  question  to-day.  I  do  not  purpose 
to  give  a  definition  of  it  in  its  philosophically  disputed 
or  discussed  sense. 

What  I  mean  by  personality  is  a  being,  separate  from 
the  effects  which  he  produces  ;  a  being,  intelligent,  with 
moral  attributes,  —  with  will  and  purpose  in  and  of  him- 
self;  in  the  case  of  God,  a  Being  who  centrally  stands 
related  to  the  universe  in  the  same  way  in  which  men 
stand  related  to  the  physical  and  social  world  which 
surrounds  them  here.  A  man  is  a  person  in  distinction 


88 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


from  a  tree,  a  cliff,  a  house,  a  stone,  or  anything  of  that 
kind,,  in  this,  that  he  is  filled  with  emotive  life,  with  will, 
and  with  moral  purpose.  But  he  is  al^o  distinct  from 
other  men,  in  that  he  has  an  individual  organization ; 
that  he  has  his  own  separateness  from  other  organiza- 
tions. And  what  I  mean  by  the  Divine  personality  is, 
that  it  is  a  Being  who  thinks,  feels,  wills,  and  governs, 
not  in  the  sense  in  which  nature  does,  but  in  the  sense 
in  which  a  voluntary  sentient  creature  does,  —  in  a 
higher  sense,  too,  but  in  the  same  general  sense. 

THE  HEIGHT  AND  THE  HUMILITY  OF  GOD. 

Now,  in  attempting  to  construct,  or  rather  in  at- 
tempting to  infuse  steadily  into  the  minds  of  your 
hearers,  the  true  idea  of  God,  make  it  real  to  them  by 
bringing  it  down  to  their  understanding.  And  you  are 
to  remember  two  things,  both  of  which  are  Scriptural : 
First,  that  the  Scripture  lifts  up  a  conception  of  God, 
and  carries  it  high.  There  is  in  the  Scriptures  most 
distinctly  a  metaphysical  element,  if  you  choose  to  call 
it  so,  —  a  philosophical  element  at  any  rate ;  and  the 
ideal  is  exceedingly  high  and  is  clothed  with  every 
attribute  of  power  and  grandeur  and  beauty  and  glory. 
Secondly,  when  you  have  carried  up  the  conception  of 
God  in  this  way,  you  must  counteract  it  by  precisely  the 
opposite  tendency,  or  else  you  will  lift  God  out  of  the 
reach  of  men's  vision,  and  out  of  the  sphere  of  human 
sympathy ;  and,  to  all  intents  and  purposes,  you  will 
remove  the  idea  of  him  from  men's  view. 

You  will  find,  I  think,  in  the  history  of  the  revela- 
tion of  God,  that  in  the  Old  Testament  Scriptures, 
both  early  and  late,  there  were  two  streams  of  repre- 


CONCEPTIONS  OF  THE  DIVINITY. 


89 


sentation,  one  of  which  was  all  the  time  exalting  God, 
and  the  other  all  the  time  bringing  him  back  to  men 
from  out  of  that  exaltation ;  showing  that  this  Being 
of  grandeur  was  nevertheless  in  intimate  personal  rela- 
tions with  men,  and  that  in  some  sense  he  humbled 
himself,  in  order  to  be  represented  by  the  homeliest 
and  commonest  of  things,  so  that  while  men  had  an 
idea  of  perfect  wisdom,  perfect  integrity,  perfect  purity, 
or  holiness,  or  righteousness,  whichever  you  may  choose 
to  call  it,  while  they  felt  that  he  was  from  eternity  to 
eternity,  and  while  the  ideal  circle  was  swept  with  the 
most  magnificent  conceptions  of  spiritual  and  moral 
power,  at  the  same  time  all  that  grandeur  kissed  men, 
caressed  them,  nursed  them,  thought  for  them,  felt  for 
them,  wept  for  them,  and  laid  itself  down  for  them. 

Those  two  processes  are  carried  along  very  nearly 
together  in  the  Old  Testament ;  and  they  must  be  kept 
in  mind  by  you,  if  you  are  to  be  able  ministers.  You 
must  not  carry  up  the  idea  of  God  so  as  to  have  it 
evaporate.  Do  not  make  God  so  holy,  or  holy  with 
such  a  conception,  that  he  shall  be  separated  from 
men.  There  must  be  a  perpetual  re-incarnation  of  the 
divine  thought. 

HUMAN  ELEMENTS  TO  REPRESENT  THE  DIVINE. 

Here  comes  in  the  great  principle  of  anthropomor- 
phism,—  if  you  will  excuse  the  length  of  the  word, 
which  I  did  not  make.  There  has  been  very  much  said 
against  the  employment  of  anthropomorphism,  —  the 
representation  of  God  in  human  forms,  or  by  human 
conditions ;  it  is  a  principle  which  has  been  very  much 
contested ;  and  yet  I  affirm  that  without  it  there  is  no 


90 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


such  thing  as  making  God  known  to  men.  It  under- 
lies all  the  Scriptures,  Old  and  New,  —  the  teaching  in 
respect  to  God  ;  and  just  as  soon  as  you  attempt  to 
represent  the  Divine  nature  in  any  other  way,  you  go 
off  into  mysticism,  into  vague  generalities  that  have 
no  power  in  them,  and  that  are  like  clouds  which  the 
wind  makes,  without  rain.  You  will  be  obliged  to 
represent  God  by  the  things  which  you  know  in  your- 
self, or  in  your  surroundings. 

It  becomes  very  important  that  you  should  know 
how  to  use  this  principle  ;  because,  while  a  thing  may 
be  right  in  its  theory,  it  may  be  in  its  practice  badly 
applied  and  most  mischievous.  It  was  this  principle 
that  led  to  the  formation  of  the  deities  of  nations  tliat 
were  unillumined  by  a  heavenly  inspired  record.  They 
took  the  things  which  they  knew  most  about,  —  pa- 
tience, courage,  endurance,  heroism,  glory,  —  and  framed 
them  into  a  person,  and  called  this,  for  instance,  Her- 
cules, their  god.  They  made  a  poor  god,  but  they  used 
the  right  principle  in  making  him  ;  that  is  to  say,  they 
did  the  best  that  they  could.  They  exalted  into  an 
infinite  sphere,  and  into  supreme  power,  those  parts  of 
human  nature  which  they  thought  the  most  of  An-d 
when  afterwards  there  were  other  parts  of  civilization 
developed,  and  these  were  clustered  about  the  Divine 
idea,  the  same  principle  was  carried  on. 

They  had  a  poor  god,  not  because  anthropomorphism 
is  wrong,  but  because  they  took  the  lowest  parts  of 
men,  —  those  parts  which  had  been  developed,  —  and 
made  their  god  out  of  these.  They  made  him  of  base 
materials,  taking  human  passions  and  fleshly  conditions, 
and  transferring  them  to  some  mountain-top,  and  mak- 


CONCEPTIONS  OF  THE  DIVINITY. 


91 


ing  them  regnant  over  all  the  earth.  But  if  they  could 
have  taken  the  thought  of  the  spirit  of  God  as  it  has 
been  developed  in  patriarchs,  in  prophets,  in  disciples, 
in  martyrs,  in  holy  men  of  old  and  in  later  days ;  if 
they  had  known  how  to  cull  and  sift  out  the  higher 
elements  of  manhood,  and  how  to  combine  them  around 
some  appropriate  center,  —  they  would  have  proceeded 
in  the  true  direction  of  constructing  in  the  human  mind 
an  idea  of  God. 

HUMAN  SYMBOLISM  OF  GOD. 

We  are  to  recollect  that  all  we  can  do  is  to  obtain 
what  may  be  called  a  symbol,  —  something  which  shall 
bring  God  to  our  imagination  and  our  thought.  No 
man  can  see  the  whole  of  the  Divine  nature  ;  no  man 
can  represent  all  of  it;  no  man  can,  by  any  process 
either  within  or  without  himself,  do  more  than  to  make 
that  which  shall  resemble  God,  as  an  idea  is  resembled 
by  letters,  which  have  the  power  of  making  the  thing 
itself  spring  up  in  the  man  when  he  sees  the  word 
which  they  compose.  The  letters  1-o-v-e  and  h-a-t-e, 
alphabetically,  separated,  detached,  have  no  power  nor 
significance;  but  if  they  are  combined  to  form  the 
words  love  and  hate,  when  they  strike  the  eye  one  flame 
of  thought  and  feeling  bursts  out  on  one  side,  and 
another  and  different  flame  of  thought  and  feeling  on 
another  side.  Being  brought  together  thus,  they  have 
the  power  of  symbols,  and  convey  ideas  to  our  minds. 

So,  though  men  may  readily  construct  the  Divine 
idea,  they  must  construct  it  of  things  which  are  in  the 
nature  of  symbols,  and  which  only  approach  the  real- 
ity.   And  this  Divine  idea  will  differ  in  magnitude  and 


92 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


purity  according  to  the  character  of  the  elements  which 
are  employed  in  its  construction,  according  to  their 
combinations,  and  according  to  the  additions  that  are 
made  to  them  from  time  to  time. 

I  am  sure  that  all  there  is  of  God  is  not  simply  that 
which  can  come  through  the  eye-gate,  through  the  ear- 
gate,  through  any  one  part,  or  through  all  the  parts,  of 
the  human  structure.  I  believe  that,  while  we  have 
much  thought  of  God  which  can  be  comprehended  by 
the  human  mind,  there  is  much  more  which  the  human 
mind  cannot  comprehend.  1  believe  that  there  are 
''thrones,  and  principalities,  and  powers,"  which  we 
shall  understand  when  we  come  to  our  higher  develop- 
ment, but  which  are  hidden  from  us  now ;  just  as  there 
is  that  in  a  father  which  the  child  does  not  understand, 
but  which  he  grows  up  to  a  knowledge  of,  little  by 
little.  Yet,  so  far  as  the  child  does  understand  the 
father,  his  understanding  of  him  is  real  and  is  right,  — 
only  the  father  is  much  more  and  far  better  than  the 
child  thinks  or  can  appreciate. 

INVISIBLE  LIGHT. 

I  was  powerfully  struck,  my  breath  was  almost  taken 
away,  by  the  inspiration  of  thought  which  came  to  my 
mind  when  Professor  Tyndall  showed  that,  aside  from 
the  beams  of  light  that  were  visible,  and  which  we  had 
recognized  as  belonging  to  light,  there  were  also  other 
parts  of  light  which  we  never  had  recognized,  and 
which  we  had  no  sense  to  detect,  —  when  he  showed 
that  there  were  qualities  of  light  which  man  was  with- 
out any  faculty  directly  to  appreciate,  and  the  existence 
of  which  he  could  only  know  from  the  fact  that  when 


CONCEPTIONS  OF  THE  DIVINITY. 


93 


it  passed  through  the  prism  and  showed  the  spectrum 
there  was  chemical  effect  produced  beyond  the  visible 
spectrum,  which  indicated  the  existence  of  elements 
there  that  could  not  be  detected  by  the  sight. 

We  had  investigated  this  subject,  and  we  thought 
we  knew  what  was  the  composition  of  light ;  but  here 
was  this  additional  truth  developed  on  one  side,  and 
very  likely  there  w^ill  be  other  truths  developed  on 
other  sides.  Undoubtedly  there  will  be  truths  of  light 
and  of  other  elements  discovered  which  we  have  not 
yet  comprehended. 

Now,  if  this  be  so  in  the  material  realm,  how  much 
more  true  must  it  be  in  the  spiritual  !  How  easily 
may  we  suppose  that  there  are  elements  of  truth  re- 
specting the  existence  of  God  Almighty,  respecting 
his  character  and  his  w^ays,  wdiich  we  do  not  see  ! 
Although  there  is  mucli  that  belongs  to  his  nature 
that  we  can  see  dimly,  yet  there  is  something  more, 
and  something  brighter  than  all  that,  which  we  do  not 
see,  but  which  we  shall  see  by  and  by. 

When  I  am  asked,  "  How  shall  we  use  the  idea  of 
God  which  we  have  constructed  so  as  to  affect  differ- 
ent persons  in  different  experiences  ? "  I  reply  that 
w^e  must,  having  by  reason  and  imagination  prepared 
the  materials  for  the  Divine  idea,  separate  them  from 
that  which  arises  from  man's  weakness  and  imper- 
fection, so  that  the  development  of  that  idea  will  go 
with  the  development  of  the  man  himself 

"  Blessed  are  the  pure  in  heart :  for  they  shall  see  God." 

No  man  sees  more  of  God  than  he  has  in  himself 
There  must  be  in  him  those  elements  through  which 


94 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


he  comes  to  a  knowledge  or  experience  of  the 
Divine. 

THE  OLD  TESTAMENT  SYMBOLISM. 

I  purpose  now  to  show  you  how,  using  this  method 
in  a  much  larger  sphere,  the  Old  Testament  teachersf 
did  produce  in  the  minds  of  the  Hebrew  people  a  con- 
ception of  God. 

First,  as  I  have  said,  there  was  the  grand  Ideal,  the 
metaphysical  Spirit,  the  Cause,  the  Sovereignty  ;  but 
what  sort  of  a  Being  was  this  Euler  who  was  lifted  up 
above  time  and  chance,  and  all  counsel,  and  help  of 
every  kind  ?  Take  notice  how  this  idea  of  God  was 
constructed  in  men  so  that  he  should  be  brought  very 
near  to  them.  In  the  first  place,  names  and  illustra- 
tions from  every  side  of  human  knowledge  were  gath- 
ered together,  showing  how  to  reach  men's  consciences, 
and  showing  likewise  that  all  creation  was  needed  in 
order,  by  the  help  of  its  many  particulars,  to  work  out 
a  conception,  faint  though  it  would  be,  of  that  which 
really  was  infinite. 

First  come  the  things  which  are  known  by  our 
senses.  Did  it  ever  occur  to  you  to  go  through  the 
Old  Testament,  and  see  how  much  use  is  made  there, 
in  describing  God,  or  the  Divine  operations,  of  the 
seasons,  of  storms,  of  clouds,  of  the  wind,  of  the  sea, 
of  mountains  and  their  caverns,  of  grass,  of  things  that 
belong  to  summer  and  winter,  of  things  that  are  organic 
and  that  grow,  or  of  things  that  are  inorganic  and  un- 
growing  ?  All  these  things  were  employed  abundantly, 
and  each  one,  if  I  may  so  say,  with  an  exquisite  adap- 
tation that  is  very  remarkable. 


I 


CONCEPTIONS  OF  THE  DIVINITY. 


95 


For  instance,  God  is  described  as  being  a  "  Eock ; 
and,  at  once,  in  your  thought,  he  is  a  Defence  ;  and 
firmness,  hardness,  and  inexpugnableness  are  the  qual- 
ities which  you  associate  with  him.  But  a  rock  is 
something  more  than  a  defence.  We  have  the  expres- 
sion, "  the  shadow  of  a  great  rock  in  a  weary  land." 
Ah  !  then,  it  is  not  any  longer  that  God  is  merely 
strong  and  enduring  ;  there  is  an  element  of  protec- 
tion, of  helpfulness,  in  his  strength,  which  throws  its 
shadow  upon  men. 

What  are  clouds  to  you  ?  To  me  they  are  babies' 
baskets  ;  they  are  flocks  of  sheep  ;  they  are  caravans 
going  through  the  desert  air ;  to  me  they  are  vast  cities 
and  battlements,  as  they  stand  piled  up  along  the  hori- 
zon. Clouds  are  what  to  you  ?  Signs  of  rain, — 
weather-gauges,  perhaps  ;  they  are  this,  that,  or  the 
other,  according  to  the  cast  of  his  mind  who  observes 
them.  What  were  they  to  the  Hebrew  ?  God's  chariots. 
They  had  a  meaning,  when  he  looked  upon  them, 
which  took  him  right  back  to  God. 

What  is  a  storm  to  you  ?  An  equatorial  current, 
drifting  northward,  —  the  compensation  of  some  other 
current  going  southward.  What  is  it  to  your  neigh- 
bor ?  The  result  of  some  condition  of  the  atmosphere, 
in  which  moisture  and  cold  meet.  What  were  storms 
to  the  old  Hebrew  ?  What  were  thunder  and  light- 
ning ?  What  were  the  convulsions  of  nature  ?  They 
were  the  stepping  forth  of  God's  feet,  which  shook  the 
earth.  The  lightning  was  the  flash  of  his  eye.  The 
thunder  was  his  voice  as  he  spoke  to  men.  Elvers, 
mountains,  trees,  told  of  the  presence  of  the  Lord  in 
the  whole  earth.    To  the  Hebrew,  matter,  organic  or 


96 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHli^G. 


inorganic,  was  the  element  from  which  attributes  were 
derived  that,  by  transfer,  came  to  be  associated  with 
the  Divine  nature. 

Living  animals  were  employed  in  the  same  w^ay. 
God  is  called  a  Lion,  an  Eagle,  and  a  Dove.  He  is 
spoken  of,  by  way  of  symbolization,  as  an  Ox  and 
as  a  Serpent.  So  you  will  find  that  the  whole  do- 
mestic economy,  in  relation  to  the  animal  kingdom, 
was  brought,  in  one  way  and  another,  to  bring  cer- 
tain suggestions,  and  to  make  certain  contributions,  to 
the  growing  conception  of  the  invisible  God. 

The  processes  of  industry  were  employed  in  like 
manner.  God  was  a  Husbandman  to  the  minds  of  the 
Jews.  It  would  be  considered  very  irreverent  if  men 
w^ere  to  point  to  heaven  and  speak  of  "  that  Farmer  up 
there";  and  yet  the  old  Jews  spoke  of  God  as  a  Hus- 
bandman. He  w^as  a  Vine- dresser ;  he  w^as  a  Gardener ; 
he  w^as  a  Vintner ;  he  was  a  Shepherd,  who  went  out 
with  flocks.  These  things  were  alphabetic,  as  it  were, 
and  spelled  out  the  Jewish  conception  of  God. 

The  same  is  true  in  the  category  of  public  oflicers. 
God  is  King  ;  he  is  Judge  ;  he  is  Captain  ;  he  is  Euler ; 
he  is  Governor  of  the  universe ;  and  these  titles  are  not 
unmeaning  or  accidental:  they  are  transferred  from 
ideas  that  have  been  elaborated  from  the  experience 
and  observation  of  men,  and  that  have  been  used  to- 
wards filling  up  the  great  metaphysical  circle  in  which 
there  are  infinite  steps,  and  which  has  infinite  contain- 
ing power.  Each  man  is  all  the  time  making  himself 
familiar  with  some  conception  of  God,  by  ascribing  to 
him  qualities  wrought  out  by  his  own  earthly  ex- 
perience. 


CONCEPTIONS  OF  THE  DIVINITY. 


97 


LIMITATION  OF  SYMBOLS. 

I  may  say  here,  in  passing,  what  I  shall  have  occa- 
sion to  say  more  at  large  by  and  by,  that  in  regard 
to  much  of  what  goes  into  the  theory  of  the  Divine 
law,  the  transfer  has  been  unwisely  made.  It  has  been 
urged  that  God,  being  a  Lawgiver,  must  do  so  and  so ; 
but  it  would  be  unfair  to  hold  him  responsible  for 
everything  that  belongs  to  objects  to  which  he  is 
likened.  For  instance,  it  would  be  unfair  to  impute  to 
him  all  the  qualities  which  are  in  the  lion.  Lion 
means  strength,  it  means  courage,  it  means  irresistible 
impetus ;  and  these  qualities  are  worthy  to  be  carried 
up  and  ascribed  to  God  ;  but  all  the  rest  of  the  lion  had 
better  be  omitted  from  the  elements  which  are  em- 
ployed for  symbolizing  God. 

Ox  means  enduring  strength ;  and  in  that  sense  it 
would  be  appropriate  to  use  it  as  signifying  continuity 
of  the  Divine  will  in  natural  law  ;  but  beefsteaks  for 
food,  ox-hide  for  shoes,  and  a  swinging  tail  to  keep  flies 
ofl',  would  not  be  appropriate  things  with  which  to 
represent  the  attributes  of  God.  We  do  not  want  the 
lower  uses  of  those  symbols  which  are  derived  from 
nature.  There  is  a  spinal  cord  running  through  them, 
there  is  a  cerebral  spot  in  them ;  and  that  is  the  only 
part  which  you  are  to  take.  In  eating  oysters  you  take 
the  meat,  but  not  the  shell.  In  printing,  it  is  just  the 
face  of  the  type  that  is  wanted  to  show  the  character 
of  the  impression.  And  there  are  given  qualities,  par- 
ticular elements,  certain  relations  of  natural  objects, 
which  add  to  the  conception  of  the  Divine  nature  that 
is  formed  in  men's  minds ;  and  these  are  to  be  pre- 

VOL.  III.  5  fk 


98 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


served ;  but  the  inferior  parts  are  to  be  shredded  off. 
You  are  to  take  the  various  symbols  of  God  wliich  you 
find  in  the  Bible  and  elsewhere,  and  treat  them  as  you 
do  a  banana  when  you  eat  it,  taking  off  the  skin ;  or  as 
you  do  an  apple,  throwing  away  the  peel. 

SOCIAL  SYMBOLS. 

In  the  relations  of  man  to  man,  we  find  that  which 
enables  us  to  conceive  of  God  as  father.  There  is  no- 
body who  does  not  know  what  fatherhood  means  ;  nor 
is  there  anything  nobler  than  the  idea  which  we-derive 
from  it ;  but  you  will  mark  how  almost  never  in  the 
Old  Testament  is  brought  in  that  other  word  which  is 
sweeter,  even,  than  the  name  of  father.  This  fact 
indicates  the  difference  between  the  present  and  four 
thousand  years  ago.  If  men  had  thought  of  mother  as 
we  do  now,  if  the  usages  of  society  had  given  her  the 
relative  position  which  she  has  to-day,  then  we  should 
have  had  something  of  motherhood  as  well  as  some- 
thing of  fatherhood  transferred  to  the  conception  or 
building  up  of  the  Divine  nature.  I  think  it  was  the 
want  of  that  element  which  created  the  Virgin  Mary, 
and  led  men  to  attempt  to  bring  out  somewhere  a  sub- 
stitute for  it. 

God  is  a  Protector  to  the  widow,  to  the  orphan,  to 
the  weak ;  he  is  a  Shelter  to  the  exposed  ;  he  is  a  De- 
liverer to  the  captive ;  he  is  a  Guide  to  the  lost ;  he  is 
a  Comforter  to  those  who  mourn  ;  he  is  a  Physician  to 
those  who  are  sick.  These  are  all  relationships  drawn 
from  the  social  conditions  of  man.  When  refined  and 
sanctified,  and  carried  up  to  the  Divine,  each  makes  one 
more  letter  in  the  spelling  out  of  the  incommunicable 
name  of  God, 


CONCEPTIONS  OF  THE  DIVINITY. 


99 


Domestic  relations  ;  relations  of  the  household  ;  rela- 
tions of  husband  and  wife,  of  parents  and  children,  and 
of  brothers  and  sisters,  —  these  are  all  a  part  of  the 
primitive  elements  in  this  grand  transfer  from  earth  to 
God,  of  the  qualities,  that  are  wrought  out  by  human 
experience. 

WHY  THESE   ELEMENTS  HAVE  BEEN  USED. 

All  matter,  then,  all  mind,  all  relationships  in  society, 
all  growths  of  nature,  all  development  of  civilization, 
all  business,  all  government,  all  outworkings  of  affec- 
tion, —  these  things  have  been  prepared  and  raised  to 
the  higher  sphere,  as  interpreters  of  qualities  that  work 
more  and  more  by  development  in  the  Divine  nature. 

To  say  that  God  is  infinitely  holy,  infinitely  right- 
eous, is  to  say  a  thing  which  to  us  is  far  grander  than 
it  could  have  been  at  the  beginning  of  the  world.  We 
know  what  holiness  is  ;  but  what  was  holiness  to  them  ? 
What  could  they  know  of  holiness,  who  bought  their 
wives  and  sold  their  children  ?  Where  men  made  no 
distinction  between  living  beings  aad  property,  and 
regarded  their  offspring  as  of  no  more  importance  than 
colts  or  calves,  what  meaning  could  they  attach  to 
those  terms  which  implied  delicacy,  self-sacrifice,  love, 
disinterestedness,  long-suffering,  and  magnanimity  ? 
These  things  could  not  have  been  understood  by  them  ; 
they  have  to  be  taught  to  men.  And  they  cannot  be 
taught  by  revelation ;  for  words  do  not  mean  anything 
to  men  until  there  is  developed  in  them  that  which 
those  words  represent.  So  a  gradual  process  of  evolve- 
ment  was  necessary.  Here  is  where  the  principle  of 
anthropomorphism  comes  in  ;  and  the  whole  round  of 


100 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


nature  was  employed  to  lift  up  the  conception  of  Di- 
vinity, in  order  that  he  might  come  near  to  men,  and 
be  understandable  by  them. 

GROWTH  IN  CONCEPTIONS  OF  GOD. 

When  this  process  had  gone  on  to  a  certain  extent, 
then  the  world  began  to  feel  the  movement  which 
has  come  on  down  to  our  day.  When  you  reach  the 
Psalms  and  the  Prophets  (minor  and  major),  and  the 
Book  of  Job,  then  you  see  how  this  Being,  thus  formed 
by  the  national  mind,  develops  little  by  little,  and  more 
clearly,  until  he  begins  to  speak  as  a  Teacher  and  as  a 
Magistrate ;  and  then  you  see  him  pointing  out  the 
lines  of  duty,  and  using  the  imagination,  using  reason 
and  hope,  using  pain  and  joy  ;  then  you  see  him  treat- 
ing men  no  longer  as  animals  in  the  stall,  but  as  beings 
far  above  the  level  wliere  the  race  began ;  and  then  you 
see  that  he  begins  to  display  divine  intelligence.  One 
can  scarcely  read  such  passages  as  are  contained  in  that 
Book  of  Job,  after  pursuing  the  line  of  thought  which  I 
have  attempted  to  disclose  this  afternoon,  without  rec- 
ognizing the  correctness  of  this  view,  of  which  I  have 
given  but  the  merest  outline,  not  going  into  that  detail 
of  which  it  is  susceptible,  if  time  would  permit. 

Now  consider,  still  further,  how  this  idea,  thus  gradu- 
ally formed  in  the  minds  of  men,  has  been  taught  in 
such  a  way  as  to  bring  it  still  nearer  to  them.  If  you 
have  had  a  father  w^hom  everybody  thought  well  of, 
and  who  has  been  everything  to  you,  you  could  hardly 
be  touched  in  any  way  more  quickly  than  by  hearing 
kindly  reference  to  him.  You  are  greatly  pleased  if 
one  says  to  you,  "  0,  I  knew  your  father !    Then  you 


CONCEPTIONS  OF  THE  DIVINITY. 


101 


are  the  son  of  my  old  friend.  Come,  go  home  with 
me  ;  come,  walk  with  me  ;  come,  I  must  see  you.  I 
knew  him  well,  and  loved  him."  A  sense  of  the  honor 
and  dignity  and  glory  of  the  father  is  very  precious  to 
the  child. 

Do  you  recollect  Jacob's  prayer  ? 

It  was  not,  "  0  Jehovah  " ;  it  was  not,  ''  ,0  thou  om- 
niscient, omnipotent  God  " ;  it  was  not,  "  0  my  meta- 
physical Superior."  It  was,  "  0  God  of  Isaac,  my 
father ! "  How  that  made  the  whole  sphere  of  God  ring 
like  a  bell  in  his  heart !  Did  you  ever  try  it  ?  If  you 
never  did,  then  it  is  because  you  never  have  known  sin 
and  darkness.  I  have  tried  it  in  deep  midnight.  There 
was  no  God  of  providence  and  grace  that  I  could  call 
on ;  to  me  the  idea  of  such  a  God  was  like  mountain- 
tops  in  mist ;  but  I  could  say, "  0  God  of  my  father  and 
of  my  mother,"  and  he  was  at  hand :  and  there  was 
brought  to  me,  quick,  the  sense  that  in  God  there  was  a 
love  which  was  stronger  than  my  father's,  and  sweeter 
than  my  mother's ;  and  I  clasped  the  idea,  and  was 
comforted  in  it. 

What  impulse,  in  a  noble  nature,  is  stronger  than 
love  for  his  country,  and  for  those  great  names  which 
are  the  honor  and  the  glory  of  that  country,  and  are 
its  representatives  ?  Do  you  suppose  it  was  without 
a  reason  that  the  old  Jews  used  to  pray,  "  Lord  God 
of  Abraham,  and  Isaac,  and  Jacob "  ?  Did  not  tliat 
prayer  bring  right  to  their  memory  and  to  their  sensi- 
bility all  the  things  of  which  the  Jew  was  proud,  —  the 
glory  of  his  origin,  and  the  grandeur  of  all  those  names 
that  stand  up  now  like  mountains  in  the  long  stretch 
backward  ?    The  crook  of  the  earth,  the  bend  of  time^ 


102 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


never  sends  their  tops  down  below  the  horizon  ;  and 
when  the  Jew  prayed  there  was  a  whole  volume  of 
patriotism  that  gushed  into  his  mind,  and  interpreted 
God  to  him. 

See  how,  throughout  the  history  of  the  Jewish  nation, 
God  was  represented  in  government.  See  how  there 
are  Psalm  after  Psalm  and  song  after  song  in  which  the 
name  of  God  is  celebrated.  And  see  how  God  is  repre- 
sented as  the  One  who  brought  the  people  of  Israel  out 
of  Egypt,  and  led  them  like  a  flock  in  the  wilderness ; 
as  the  one  before  whom  the  sea  fled,  and  armies  trem- 
bled and  melted  away.  See  how  the  Hebrews,  all 
through  their  method  of  teaching,  represented  God 
through  their  personal  affections,  —  through  their  sense 
of  fatherhood  and  motherhood,  through  their  love  of 
country,  and  through  their  pride  of  race.  And  ought 
there  not  to  be  something  like  that  yet  ? 

The  idea  of  God  having  been  inspired  in  men,  and 
clothed  with  every  noble  attribute  which  was  deriva- 
ble from  men's  knowledge,  it  was  brought  to  bear  in 
human  conduct.  Justice,  purity,  fidelity,  reverence, 
and  righteousness  were  qualities  which  were  then  un- 
derstood as  existing  in  God ;  because  the  conception 
of  God  had  little  by  little  been  built  from  specimens 
of  these  qualities  in  a  low  and  imperfect  state,  sub- 
limated and  carried  up,  which  kindled  in  the  hearts  of 
men  a  truer  idea  of  God  than  otherwise  could  have  been 
developed  in  them. 

Take  Matthew  Arnold.  His  writings  are  very  pleas- 
ant, and  they  contain  a  great  deal  of  valuable  thought  ; 
but  when  Mr.  Matthew  Arnold  tells  us  that  there  is  no 
personal  God,  that  there  is  only  a  stream  of  tendencies, 


CONCEPTIONS  OF  THE  DIVINITY. 


103 


and  that  the  Hebrews  believed,  not  in  a  personal  God, 
but  only  in  those  great  causes  which  made  for  righteous- 
ness, I  confess  I  stop.  Mr.  Arnold  has  a  perfect  right 
to  say  that  he  does  not  believe  in  a  personal  God ;  but 
in  the  name  of  Abraham  and  Isaac  and  Jacob,  and  all 
the  prophets  of  Israel,  I  protest  against  his  saying  that 
the  old  Hebrews  did  not  believe  in  God's  personality. 
He  might  just  as  well  say  that  I  do  not  believe  in  it, 
that  you  do  not  believe  in  it,  that  the  whole  race  do  not 
believe  in  it.  That  would  not  be  a  more  audacious 
thing  than  the  other. 

THE  BARRENNESS  OF  ABSTRACT  PREACHINC. 

We  are  now  prepared  to  consider  our  own  method 
of  preacliing  and  teaching  about  God  to  bur  own  peo- 
ple, in  these  modern  days. 

In  the  first  place,  it  is  largely  the  metaphysical  and 
the  abstract  that  we  dwell  upon  in  preaching.  I  have 
already  alluded  to  that  in  various  ways.  I  merely 
allude  to  it  again  to  make  the  statement  complete. 
We  are  accustomed  to  preach  about  God  in  Latinized 
periphrastic  language,  in  language  which  represents 
the  last  ideas  of  civilization.  Well,  that  does  e^ood,  I 
hope,  to  educated  men,  to  men  who  like  to  indulge  in 
abstract  thought ;  and  yet,  on  the  other  hand,  it  leaves 
in  them  a  great  Sahara.  Man  shall  not  live  by  bread  ^ 
alone,"  and  he  shall  not  live  by  brains  alone.  The  best 
part  of  a  man's  life  is  in  his  heart.  I  thank  God  that,  ^ 
to  a  large  extent,  cultivated  men  do  liv^e  in  their  hearts, 
the  scholastic  age  having  passed,  and  a  larger  and  bet- 
ter age  having  come  in. 

I  see  men  going  to  colleges  to  preach,  and  preaching 


104 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


sermons  that  are  purely  intellectual ;  but,  if  I  were  to 
preach  to  College  Faculty  and  students,  do  you  think  I 
would  hunt  up  a  subject  which  would  require  the  dis- 
cussion of  abstract  questions  that  were  above  the  reach 
of  ordinary  human  life,  thinking  that  to  be  the  kind  of 
preaching  that  they  wanted  ?  No ;  I  should  say,  "  They 
have  too  much  of  that  already."  I  should  say,  "  The 
part  of  these  men  that  lies  in  the  brain  is  overfed  ;  and 
there  is  a  great  deal  more  of  them  down  in  the  heart 
that  is  hungering  and  wishing  that  it  could  be  fed." 
I  would  preach  to  that  part  which  unites  humanity; 
which  has  regard  for  all  men,  high  or  low,  rich  or  poor, 
home  or  foreign ;  which  binds  mankind  together,  and 
makes  the  race  one,  the  world  around.  That  is  a  large 
ground,  where  men  need  more  influence,  and  where 
they  are  more  grateful  for  it,  I  think,  than  anywhere 
else. 

In  your  preaching  it  is  not  enough  that  you  should 
define  God ;  especially  is  it  not  enough  that  you  should 
explain  what  are  his  relations  to  natural  and  what  to 
moral  law ;  it  is  not  enough  that  you  should  tell  your 
hearers  how  it  was  that  he  constructed  the  universe, 
and  how  he  said  to  himself,  I  am  going  to  create  the 
world  so  and  so."  One  would  think,  from  the  minute- 
ness with  which  these  things  are  described,  that  the 
old  theologians  must  have  been  shorthand  reporters, 
and  must  have  sat  and  taken  notes  at  the  time  of 
creation ! 

I  remember  that  my  venerable  old  father  and  Dr. 
Taylor  used  to  sit  for  hours  together  discussing  the- 
ology in  our  Litchfield  parlor,  when  the  question  was, 
whether  God  could  have  had  a  government  in  which 


CONCEPTIONS  OF  THE  DIVINITY. 


105 


there  should  or  should  not  have  been  sin,  and  whether 
or  not  men  could  have  been  free  agents.  Father  would 
say,  "God  would  have  done  so  and  so  in  such  an 
event ;  and  Dr.  Taylor  would  say,  "  Stop,  stop,  Brother 
Beecher ;  God  could  not  have  done  so ;  he  would  have 
been  obliged  to  do  so."  Then  father  would  go  on  and 
show  what  God  could  do  and  what  he  could  not  do,  and 
why  he  could  or  could  not  do  it,  making  a  disclosure 
of  the  possibilities  and  the  limitations  of  the  Divine 
Mind  which  would  quite  astound  Dr.  Taylor ;  and  so  it 
went,  back  and  forth,  far  into  the  night. 

I  do  not  undertake  to  say  that  there  is  not  in  that 
direction  a  range  of  proper  inquisition  and  discussion ; 
but  this  I  say  :  beware  of  making  that  tha  substance  of 
your  preaching.  Do  not  delude  yourself  by  supposing 
that  thus  you  are  preaching  God  in  any  understandable 
sense  to  those  who  listen  to  you.  When  you  discuss 
truths  of  the  Divine  government,  follow  the  example 
of  the  Bible,  especially  in  those  parts  where  God  him- 
self instructs  the  race  by  his  word,  through  inspired 
:nen,  in  regard  to  the  nature  of  human  society,  the  one 
central  object  being  to  rear  up  before  men  such  a  con- 
ception of  the  Divine  as  shall  rain  down  on  them  a 
power  which  will  lift  men  into  millennial  glory.  Not 
only  should  we  follow  that  example,  but,  in  order  to  do 
it,  we  should  resist  that  insensible  drift  which  science 
has  given  to  men's  ideas,  —  science,  which  I  honor  and 
love,  but  which  is  not  immaculate,  and  which  is  im- 
perfect as  an  educator,  —  science,  that  is  crude,  that  is 
not  developed,  and  that  is  begetting  a  tendency  among 
men  to  see  in  things  nothing  but  natural,  i.  e.  immediate, 
causes. 

5* 


106 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


GOD  IN  NATURE. 

To  the  old  Hebrews,  a  phenomenon  was  divinity.  If 
they  made  it  literally  a  deity,  without  the  knowledge 
of  an  interjected  mediation  or  cause,  there  was  a  mis- 
take on  their  part ;  but  we  are  making  the  same  mis- 
take. When  we  look  at  an  event,  it  means  some  law 
of  nature  ;  when  we  look  at  rain,  it  means  a  change  of 
atmosphere  ;  when  we  look  at  clouds,  they  mean  a  cer- 
tain atmospheric  condition ;  when  w^e  look  at  moun- 
tains, they  mean  geological  formations ;  when  we  look 
at  trees,  they  mean  timber  ;  when  we  look  at  birds,  they 
are  something  good  to  shoot  and  eat.  In  other  words, 
we  vulgarize,  or  we  secularize,  almost  all  tilings  in 
nature.  "  AVe  must  look  at  them  as  they  are,"  men  say. 
Look  at  them  as  they  are  !  Wliat  does  that  mean  ?  I 
affirm  that  it  is  quite  possible  for  men  to  liave  a  double 
line  of  influence  proceeding  from  a  phenomenon,  one 
tracing  it  in  its  lower  and  secular  connections,  and  the 
other  associating  it  with  the  great  First  Cause,  that 
stands  back  of  all  things,  and  fills  all  things  witli  the 
fullness  of  his  own  self. 

No  man  learns  anything  readily  in  sensuous  forms 
who  sees  it  as  matter  only,  and  not  as  the  product  of 
Divine  thought,  —  who  does  not  see  it,  so  to  speak,  as  a 
crystal  from  some  side  of  which  glances  the  portrai- 
ture of  the  Being  that  made  it ;  and  yet,  in  connection 
with  natural  objects,  in  connection  with  things  that 
belong  to  the  departments  of  manufacture  and  com- 
merce, in  connection  with  matter-of-fact  things,  the 
world  is  ceasing  to  talk  of  God  any  more. 

When  we  see  glaciers,  what  do  we  think  of  ?  Agassiz 


CONCEPTIONS  OF  THE  DIVINITY. 


107 


and  Tyndall.  When  we  see  mountains,  what  do  we 
think  of  ?  This  or  that  theory  of  geology.  It  is  low ;  it 
is  ill-bred ;  and  we  must  go  back  to  the  habit  of  seeing 
more  in  nature,  and  of  giving  to  nature  uses  in  the 
realm  of  the  imagination  and  of  the  affections.  It  is  a 
habit  which  we  once  had,  but  which  we  have  wellnigh 
lost. 

A  PEKSONAL  EXPERIENCE. 

I  would  not  for  all  the  comfort  which  I  might  get 
from  the  books  of  the  Alexandrian  Library,  or  from  the 
Lenox  Library,  give  up  the  comfort  which  I  get  out  of 
nature.  Nature,  now  that  I  have  had  the  revelation  of 
God  which  interprets  it  to  me,  I  would  not  give  up  for 
anything.  I  had  almost  said  that  I  would  rather  lose 
my  Bible  than  to  lose  my  world.  There  is  no  sunlight 
that  does  not  say  something  to  me  of  the  Sun  of  Eight- 
eousness.  There  is  no  created  thing  that  does  not  say 
something  to  me  of  God  who  framed  it.  I  sit  on  the 
hillside,  in  summer,  and  watch  the  spiders  as  they 
spin  their  webs,  and  the  grasshoppers,  as  they  leap 
over  me,  freshman-like,  jumping  first,  and  looking  to 
see  where  they  have  landed  afterwards ;  and  the  birds, 
as  they  skip  from  branch  to  branch,  or  fly  from  tree  to 
tree.  There  is  not  an  animal  that  distrusts  me.  I  sit 
so  still  that  the  birds  forget  that  I  am  there,  and  sing 
as  they  do  not  often  sing  when  persons  are  near  them  ; 
and  the  ants  creep  about  me  and  on  me  ;  and  I  have  a 
sense  of  the  relationship  of  these  things.  There  is 
nothing  that  grows  —  no  weed,  no  grass,  no  flower,  no 
fruit  —  that  is  not  in  some  way  related  to  God  in  my 
thoughts  ;  and  I  am  never  so  near  him  as  when  I  am  in 
the  presence  of  his  works,  —  as  when,  night  or  day,  I  am 


108 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


in  that  solemn  cathedral,  the  world  of  nature,  and  be- 
hold its  ever-changing  beauty.  There  are  no  such 
frescos  in  art  as  God's  hand  paints  in  the  heavens. 
There  are  no  such  relations  of  God  as  come  to  us 
through  nature.  In  the  budding,  blossoming  days  of 
spring,  in  the  balmy  days  of  summer,  in  the  fruitful 
days  of  autumn,  in  the  days  of  winter,  in  every  day  of 
the  year,  there  is  something  which  is  a  separate  leaf  to 
me  in  God's  outside  Bible,  now  that  I  have  learned  to 
read  it.  I  owe  more  to  Ruskin  than  to  any  theologian. 
Eyes  I  had,  but  I  did  not  see  ;  now  I  see  marvelous 
things.  Ears  had  I,  but  I  did  not  hear ;  now  I  hear 
things  that  are  wonderful  beyond  all  conception. 
New  realms  in  the  universe  of  God  have  been  disclosed 
to  me  through  these  things.  They  have  been  a  source 
of  unspeakable  comfort  to  me ;  and  from  them  I  have 
derived  a  power  of  comforting  other  people  in  my 
preaching.  I  owe  much,  very  much,  to  the  fact  that  I 
have  become,  as  it  were,  Hebraized,  —  that  I  have  gone 
back  and  practiced  upon  the  genius  of  that  noble  old 
stock  who  learned  by  a  wise  spiritualizing  of  things 
visible  to  discern  the  invisible  God. 

FOLLOW  THE  HEBRAIC  SPIRIT,  —  NOT  FORM. 

There  is  another  criticism  that  I  would  make,  or  cau- 
tion that  I  would  give,  —  namely,  that  in  attempting 
to  comfort  yourselves,  and  in  attempting  to  teach 
others  to  comfort  themselves,  in  the  recognition  of  the 
Divine  Being,  you  must  not  be  content  simply  to  go 
over  the  names  that  are  contained  in  the  Old  or  the 
New  Testament,  or  names  that  have  been  subsequently 
developed  and  become  familiar,  as  descriptive  of  God. 


CONCEPTIONS  0^  THE  DIVINITY. 


109 


The  power  of  many  of  them  has  perished.  To  us  the 
conception  which  is  given  of  God  by  representing  him 
as  a  lion  is  very  little.  The  early  significance  of  this 
representation  is  gone.  Still  more  strongly  is  that 
the  case  with  those  names  which  made  the  hearts  of 
the  men  of  old  thrill ;  as,  for  instance,  when  God  was 
spoken  of  as  the  God  of  Abraham,  the  God  of  Isaac, 
and  the  God  of  Jacob.  These  names  are  to  me  the 
names  of  three  very  noble  and  respectable  personages, 
but  not  much  more.  I  am  not  drawn  to  them  by  any 
affinity  of  race-stock.  The  thread  which  ran  down 
from  them  was  spun  so  long  that  it  broke  before  it 
reached  me.  They  are  names  which,  though  they 
are  still  used,  produce  but  little  effect.  They  are  not 
names  that  take  hold  upon  the  feelings  of  people  in 
the  present  day  as  more  modern  ones  would  do.  I 
have  heard  men  pray,  0  God  of  Abraham/'  "  0  God 
of  Isaac,"  0  God  of  Jacob,"  "  0  God  of  Zion  "  ;  but  I 
never  heard  men  pray,  "  0  God  of  Brooklyn,"  0  God 
of  America."  I  never  heard  anybody,  in  prayer,  imi- 
tate the  spirit,  and  not  merely  the  outward  form,  of 
the  Hebrews  in  this  respect.  When  the  old  ante-Christ 
Christians  prayed  to  God,  they  prayed  out  of  their 
necessity,  —  a  necessity  which  led  them  to  give  to  the 
Divine  nature  such  titles  as  we  find  in  the  Bible. 

What  does  a  mother  say,  when  her  child  is  sick,  and 
she  is  in  despair,  and  when  it  flashes  on  her  mind  that 
her  first-born,  her  only  child,  that  she  never  dreamed 
could  be  taken  from  her,  is  dying  ?  How  can  she  say, 
"  0  Lord  J ehovah "  ?  It  would  be  hrutum  fulmen. 
Why  does  she  not  say,  "  0  God  of  my  dying  babe "  ? 
That  would  bring  him  very  near,  in  power.    Why  do 


110 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


you  not  pray  in  the  name  of  your  father,  in  the  name 
of  your  mother,  and  in  the  name  of  your  town  ?  In 
other  words,  when  you  pray,  wliy  do  you  not  imitate, 
not  externally  but  internally,  those  men  who,  when 
they  went  to  God,  appealed  to  him  in  the  name  of 
those  things  which  were  truest  and  most  significant  to 
them  1 

There  is  a  God  of  men  who  are  bankrupt ;  there  is 
a  God  of  men  who  are  in  prison ;  there  is  a  God  of 
men  who  are  sinful,  and  who  have  been  found  out, 
and  who  are  overwhelmed  with  distress  ;  and  why  do 
not  they  take  their  title  from  their  circumstances  and 
experience  ?  What  an  opener  of  the  Divine  nature  to 
men  it  w^ould  be,  if  they  would  transfer  that  which 
they  need  in  their  peculiar  exigencies  to  the  care  of 
God,  who  is  all  in  all ! 

HOW  TO  REALIZE  THE  DIVINE  PRESENCE. 

It  is  in  the  way  of  whicli  I  have  been  speaking 
that  we  can  form  some  conception  of  tlie  Divine  per- 
sonality, or  disposition  and  character  of  God.  We  rise 
up  to  it  through  a  kind  of  anthropomorphism.  By  that 
means  we  come  to  the  best  notion  of  deity  as  a  Being 
possessed  of  dispositions,  and  not  of  attributes  simply. 

Now,  how  can  we  make  this  conception  ever-present 
with  us  ?  I  have  already  hinted  at  the  manner  in  which 
it  may  be  done ;  but  let  me  elaborate  a  few  points  more 
clearly. 

NOT  BY  WILL-POWER. 

We  fail  to  make  a  conception  of  the  Divine  pres- 
ence the  result  of  volition  only,  or  chiefly.  Herein 


CONCEPTIONS  OF  THE  DIVINITY. 


Ill 


lies  the  great  trouble  with  people.  They  say,  "  You 
tell  me  that  I  must  love  God.  I  try  to  love  him,  and 
I  love  to  vacuity.  Though  I  try  to  love,  there  is  no 
God  that  presents  himself  to  my  mind." 

Did  anybody  ever  talk  to  persons  who  were  seeking 
to  love  God,  that  he  did  not  meet  with  this  difficulty  ? 
Is  it  not  the  universal  experience  in  revivals,  with  per- 
sons who  have  been  educated  catechetically  to  abstract 
notions  of  God,  and  who  have  never  been  educated 
associationally  in  respect  to  the  Divine  nature,  that 
when  they  undertake  to  evoke  Jehovah  by  their  will, 
there  is  no  response  ?  Although  you,  who  are  highly 
cultured,  have,  on  other  grounds,  a  usable  conception 
of  the  Divine  nature,  and  can  evoke  it,  .the  great  mass 
of  your  people  cannot,  when  you  describe  it  to  them 
as  it  is  usually  presented  in  systems  of  theology. 

NOT  BY  FIXED  ARTIFICIAL  SYMBOLS. 

We  must  refuse  to  have  a  variety  of  religious  sym- 
bols set  apart  to  be  the  sole  interpreters  of  God.  Of 
course,  those  who  have  High-Church  ears  to  hear  must 
not  hear  what  I  am  going  to  say  now.  I  do  not  object 
at  all  to  a  man's  surrounding  himself  with  symbols  ; 
I  believe  in  symbols  ;  I  believe  that  they  are  the  very 
life  and  power  of  education ;  but  I  do  protest  against 
a  man's  building  a  church  and  putting  a  cross  on  it  in 
order  to  get  an  association  of  God.  I  protest  against 
forms  and  ceremonies  being  introduced  into  religious 
services  for  the  purpose  of  fixing  the  minds  of  men  on 
God.  I  protest  against  bringing  out  ministers  in  black 
and  white,  with  the  view  of  impressing  upon  men  by 
these  colors  certain  moral  qualities.    I  protest  against 


112 


LliCTURES  ON  PREACHINC. 


turnings  and  twistings  as  signifying  spiritual  ideas. 
I  protest  against  those  artificial  symbolizations  which 
have  been  invented  to  represent  great  interior  prin- 
ciples and  facts. 

Suppose  I  should  take  a  match  and  strike  a  light 
and  go  and  hold  it  in  a  corner,  and  look  at  it ;  sup- 
pose a  man,  observing  me,  should  ask,  "  Mr.  Beecher, 
what  are  you  doing  ? "  and  I  should  say,  "  I  am  bring- 
ing to  my  mind  a  vivid  conception  of  the  sun  ! "  Sup- 
pose a  man  who  had  been  taught  according  to  the  old 
Hebrew  method,  that  the  morning  sun  comes  from  God, 
—  that  the  tremulous  dewy  atmosphere  of  the  early 
hours  is  the  breath  of  God,  —  that  the  wind,  which 
shakes  the  trees,  and  sighs  through  their  branches,  is 
of  God,  —  that  the  perfumes  of  plants  and  flowers  are 
caused  by  God,  —  that  all  creatures  that  live  in  the 
sea,  on  the  earth,  and  in  the  air,  are  God's  creations,  — 
that  all  processes  of  nature  are  carried  on  under  the 
inspiration  of  God,  —  that  whatever  is  spread  abroad 
throughout  the  universe  is  God's  handiwork,  —  suppose 
this  man  to  have  a  deep,  grand  sense  of  the  Divine 
origin  of  all  things  ;  and  then  let  him  think  of  these 
little  pickaninny  symbols,  stuck  away  in  the  corner 
of  a  church,  as  representing  moral  and  spiritual  ideas  ! 
It  is  the  poverty  of  them,  it  is  the  meanness  of  them, 
it  is  the  narrowness  of  them,  it  is  their  tendency  to 
fetichism,  that  I  object  to,  and  not  to  the  principle  of 
symbolism  itself. 

BUT  BY  SEEING  GOD  IN  EVERYTHING. 

Take  this  principle,  and  use  it  like  men  touched 
with  the  Divine  spirit,  reaching  up  toward  the  Divine, 


CONCEPTIONS  OF  THE  DIVINITY. 


113 


and  dwelling  in  the  realm  where  you  recognize  that 
the  "  heavens  declare  the  glory  of  God  and  the  firma- 
ment showeth  his  hand-work."  There  is  where  you 
should  go  for  your  symbols.  There  is  where  things 
have  their  true  significance.  Prosperity  and  adversity, 
life  and  death,  joy  and  sorrow,  friendships  and  dislikes 
or  repulsions,  —  all  these  things  come  with  significant 
meanings  to  the  minds  of  men  when  they  rise  to  that 
upper  sphere. 

If  in  that  way  it  is  a  principle  of  your  life,  each 
day,  and  all  the  time,  to  make  everything  a  suggestion 
of  the  Divine,  you  cannot  be  far  from  God  ;  you  will 
not  have  to  go  a  great  distance  to  find  him  ;  you  will 
be  in  his  presence  without  seeing  him  ;  he  will  be  with 
you  at  the  table,  by  the  couch,  in  your  walks,  every- 
where. All  things  that  you  look  upon  will  bring  to 
you  some  memory  of  him.  The  very  air  will  be  redo- 
lent with  his  influence.  There  will  be  no  question  as 
to  how  you  shall  bring  him  to  you.  You  will  live 
with  him  ;  you  will  live  in  him  ;  "  for  in  him  we  live, 
and  move,  and  have  our  being." 

Perhaps  I  cannot  better  close  than  by  going  back 
and  reading  to  you  the  Hebrew's  thought  about  this  : — 

"  Thou  compassest  my  path  and  my  lying  down,  and  art 
acquainted  with  all  my  ways.  For  there  is  not  a  word  in 
my  tongue  but,  lo,  0  Lord,  thou  knowest  it  altogether.  Thou 
has  beset  me  behind  and  before,  and  laid  thine  hand  upon 
me.  Such  knowledge  is  too  wonderful  for  me  ;  it  is  high,  I 
cannot  attain  unto  it.  Whither  shall  I  go  from  thy  spirit  ] 
or  whither  shall  I  flee  from  thy  presence  ?  If  I  ascend  up 
into  heaven,  thou  art  there  :  if  I  make  my  bed  in  hell,  be- 
hold, thou  art  there.    If  I  take  the  wings  of  the  morning, 

H 


114 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


and  dwell  in  the  uttermost  parts  of  the  sea  ;  even  there  shall 
thy  hand  lead  me,  and  thy  right  hand  shall  hold  me.  If  I 
say,  Surely  the  darkness  shall  cover  me  ;  even  the  night  shall 
be  light  about  me.  Yea,  the  darkness  liideth  not  from  thee ; 
but  the  night  shineth  as  the  day  :  the  darkness  and  the  light 
are  both  alike  to  thee." 


V. 


PRACTICAL  USE  OF  THE  DIVINE  IDEAL. 

February  26,  1874. 

A  PARADOX. 

NT  attempting  to  interpret  to  our  people  the 
knowledge  of  God,  it  is  necessary,  first,  that 
the  Divine  nature  should  be  unknowable, 
in  order  that  it  may  be  knowable  ;  and 
then,  that  ii  should  be  known  before  it  can  be  unknown, 
if  you  will  excuse  such  a  paradox  as  this. 

IDOLATRY  AND  MYSTICISM. 

The  human  mind  longs  for  something  which  it  can 
take  hold  of  and  grasp  by  that  part  of  itself  which  is 
most  active,  and  in  which  its  strength  lies.  This  desire 
is  the  root  of  all  idolatry.  Idols  are  rude  attempts  of 
men  to  present  to  themselves  a  superior  power  by  the 
use  of  those  materials  with  which  they  are  most  familiar ; 
and  that  root-desire  is  in  itself  ri^ht.  Without  it  there 
would  be  no  outreach  toward  God ;  without  it  the  soul 
would  not  feel  drawn  or  attracted  heavenward.  This  is 
that  which  in  the  Scriptures  is  rebuked,  —  that  men 
should  attempt  to  frame  a  God  for  their  senses,  and  out 
of  themselves  alone ;  and  yet,  since  all  knowledge  on 


116 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


our  part,  in  its  initial  stages,  must  have  relation  to  our 
own  faculties,  since  we  cannot  understand  anything  that 
addresses  itself  to  other  faculties  than  those  which  we 
have,  all  our  knowledge,  in  the  beginning,  must  be  of 
things  visible,  or  of  things  easily  cognizable ;  we  must 
take  known  things.  Being  taken,  however,  they  must 
be  exalted,  —  they  must  be  carried  up  so  high  that  they 
cease  to  represent  the  weakness  and  the  rudeness  of 
the  human  element.  This  is  the  work  of  faith ;  or,  in 
other  words,  the  work  of  the  imagination,  acting  phil- 
osophically with  the  higher  intellectual  and  moral 
powers. 

If  you  take  the  things  which  are  known,  and  frame 
them  into  divinity  just  as  you  know  them,  and  into 
such  a  divinity  as  shall  stand  on  the  level  with  your 
knowledge,  you  have  an  idol.  If  you  take  the  concep- 
tions which  go  to  make  the  Divine  nature,  and  employ 
abstractions  of  mere  philosophical  ideas,  then  you  come 
into  the  realm  of  mysticism,  or  the  realm  of  pure  ideal- 
ity, that  is  as  barren  of  power  as  idolatry  itself,  —  cer- 
tainly as  barren  of  any  power  for  good. 

THE  KNOWN  RAISED  TO  THE  UNKNOWN. 

So,  then,  the  operation  through  which  the  human 
mind  goes,  in  the  construction  of  its  conception  of  God, 
is  that  of  taking  things  with  which  it  is  acquainted, 
and  forming  that  conception  by  thought,  by  accumula- 
tion, by  various  means,  until  it  is  all  irradiated  by  im- 
agination, and  under  the  Divine  inspiration,  —  which 
I  believe  not  to  be  local  or  special,  but  universal,  in 
everything  that  lifts  a  man  above  the  animal  condition, 
and  belonging  to  all  time,  as  well  as  to  all  men  who 


PRACTICAL  USE  OF  THE  DIVINE  IDEAL.  117 

think  of  moral  ideas  and  the  higher  forms  of  intellec- 
tual truth. 

Under  this  inspiration,  —  or,  if  I  may  so  say,  under 
the  stimulus  of  the  Sun  of  Eighteousness,  —  these  ele- 
ments of  knowledge  with  which  we  commence  must  be 
lifted  up  into  that  sphere  where  we  can  begin  to  assign 
to  them  infinity,  —  and  to  infinity  there  can  be  no  ab- 
solute meaning  other  than  that  of  illimitable  and  im- 
measurable extent  or  intensity.  These  qualities,  whose 
germ-forms  are  in  our  knowledge,  must  be  raised  into 
a  sphere  in  which  the  imagination  conceives  of  them  as 
literally  presenting  the  utmost  measures  which  human 
experience  can  apply  in  respect  to  quality  and  quantity, 
—  and  then  recognizing  their  still  vaster  .range. 

So  we  take  time-elements,  and  frame  a  conception 
of  the  Divine  Being  out  of  them.  But  then,  before 
we  have  completed  that  conception  it  must  have  entered 
into  the  realm  of  eternity,  and  our  God  must  transcend 
anything  that  the  human  mind  can  conceive  of.  In 
pre-existence  and  in  continued  existence  he  is  exalted 
immeasurably  above  animal  life,  above  human  life, 
above  race-life,  passing  all  the  analogies  or  facts  with 
which  we  began.  We  lift  up  into  the  heaven  that 
which,  when  once  lifted  up,  is  as  much  higher  than 
the  elements  with  which  we  set  out,  as  the  clouds  that 
hang  gorgeous  in  the  sky,  or  are  glorified  at  evening, 
are  higher  than  the  particles  of  vapor  when  they  first 
begin  to  ascend  from  puddle,  pool,  or  stream. 

THE  SENSE  OF  INFINITY,  A  MORAL  POWER. 

It  is  this  thought  that  familiarly  springs,  and  must 
spring,  from  your  knowledge,  but  that  must  not  stop 


118 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


there,  nor  take  its  limits  there,  —  that  must  be  car- 
ried up  into  the  infinite  and  the  eternal,  —  it  is  this 
thought  that  will  have  much  to  do,  by  and  by,  in  your 
work  of  the  ministry ;  for  you  are  to  do  for  individual 
men  from  the  pulpit,  in  the  course  of  a  few  years,  that 
which  historically  has  been  done  for  the  race  through 
periods  of  thousands  of  years.  In  other  words,  the 
great  problem  of  the  evolution  of  moral  truth  is  to  be 
enacted  over  again,  —  only  it  is  to  be  done  in  briefer 
and  still  briefer  periods.  If  you  are  a  minister,  you  are 
appointed,  in  some  sense,  to  be  a  Providence  to  your 
people,  and  to  do  in  a  short  space  of  time  what  in 
earlier  periods  was  done  through  the  lives  of  nations 
and  of  the  race.  So,  then,  when  we  have  begun  with 
things  known,  we  are  to  carry  the  idea  of  God  as  far 
away  from  known  things  as  we  can.  In  that  way  we 
get  power;  and  otherwise  there  would  be  no  power. 

The  infinity  of  God,  in  all  its  attributes,  —  the  eter- 
nity of  God,  —  the  self-existence  of  God,  —  you  may 
be  able  to  carry  your  people  back  along  the  line  of 
thought  respecting  these  things  until  they  pant  for 
breath ;  there  is  a  certain  moral  dynamic  result,  some- 
times, by  which  men  are  so  overcome  in  the  contem- 
plation of  the  eternity  and  self-existence  of  God,  that 
they  almost  gasp  at  the  thought  of  it.  Yet  it  is  not 
necessary  that  there  should  be  a  distinct  intellectual 
perception  of  these  things,  in  order  to  get  the  impres- 
sion of  them. 

Thus  it  is  also  in  regard  to  the  universalness  of  God's 
presence,  of  his  absolute  supremacy,  and  of  his  omnipo- 
tent power ;  and  in  these  later  days,  when  we  have  a 
more  perfect  understanding  of  created  things,  the  prob- 


PKACTICAL  USE  OF  THE  DIVINE  IDEAL.  119 

lem  of  Divine  ease  in  the  management  of  the  universe 
is  increased  in  difficulty  of  conception ;  and  the  thought 
that  one  Being  can  have  personal  care  over  that  which 
we  know  and  are  all  the  time  finding  out  to  be  the 
universe  is  rendered  harder  of  conception. 

Science  is  unpacking  a  particular  part  of  the  uni- 
verse, and  showing  its  infinite  riches  and  variety  and 
depth  and  complexity.  All  elements  that  go  to  make 
science  so  wonderful  now  are  reacting  in  their  turn, 
and  are  making  that  Divine  Center,  who  is  the  Father 
and  Controller  of  these  elements,  still  more  wonderful. 

It  seems  to  me  that  the  idea  of  God  has  but  dawned, 
and  that  w^e  are  to  have  further  and  further  revelations 
respecting  him.  I  believe,  however,  not-  that  the  new 
will  slough  off  the  old,  or  supersede  the  old,  but  simply 
that,  as  in  a  stately  tree,  branch  after  branch,  or  as  in 
the  pine,  whorl  after  whorl,  makes  all  that  there  was 
more  noble  and  grander,  so  upon  the  basis  of  knowl- 
edge, actual  and  real,  there  is  to  be  development  after 
development,  through  ages,  which  will  give  a  percep- 
tion of  God  that  prophets  may  now  discern  dimly,  but 
that  we  do  not  see. 

DANGER  OF  THE  INFINITE  IDEAL. 

When  you  have  presented  this  thought  of  God  to 
your  people  ;  when  to  their  imagination  you  have  filled 
it  full  of  power  and  wonderfulness ;  when  you  have 
made  them  feel  that  God  is,  in  the  heaven,  and  over 
the  heaven,  the  Master  of  time  and  of  eternity,  the 
Indw^eller  of  the  invisible,  the  Forth-putter  of  all  phe- 
nomena; when  you  have  raised  before  them  an  im- 
mense conception  of  the  Divine  power  and  grandeur 


120 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


and  majesty  and  fullness  and  glory,  —  there  will  be 
danger  of  their  being  without  a  God.  He  will  be  so 
large,  and  he  will  live  in  conditions  so  different  from 
theirs,  that  they  will  be  liable  to  lose  him. 

THE  UNKNOWABLE  REDUCED  TO  THE  KNOW  ABLE. 

Now,  therefore,  you  must  bring  back  again  from  the 
unknowable  to  the  knowable,  those  whose  imaginations 
are  tremulous  with  the  impressions  of  the  Divine  which 
you  have  made  upon  them.  You  must  lead  them  back 
from  those  depths  to  which  you  have  carried  them,  by 
opening  to  them  God's  righteousness  and  his  paternal 
government,  and  by  making  them  sure  of  the  truth  of 
a  Providence,  particular  and  minute. 

I  would  as  soon  die  as  live,  if  I  thought  the  network 
of  natural  law  which  is  being  woven  now  was  to  take 
away  my  faith  of  prayer,  and  my  faith  of  a  Provi- 
dence, personal  and  especial.  With  the  destruction  of 
the  doctrine  of  such  a  Providence,  and  of  the  concep- 
tion of  prayer,  everything,  to  me,  would  be  destroyed. 
Deprive  me  of  these  things,  and  you  deprive  me  of 
that  on  which  my  hope  rests.  Without  them  I  should 
be  as  an  atom  floating  in  space,  out  of  the  reach  of  any 
sympathy. 

You  need  to  bring  near  to  your  people  that  God  the 
conception  of  whom  you  have  builded  and  magnified 
in  their  hearts,  so  that  they  shall  feel  that  he  is  theirs. 
Point  out  to  me  a  man  whom  all  the  world  is  talking 
about,,  who  is  surrounded  by  crowds  of  admirers,  whose 
step  in  the  nation  makes  it  tremble,  and  who  is  influ- 
ential and  great,  —  point  out  to  me  such  a  man,  and 
though  I  admire  him  too,  I  stand  in  awe  of  him,  and 


PRACTICAL  USE  OF  THE  DIVINE  IDEAL.  121 

am  afraid  to  approach  him  ;  but  tell  me,  "  That  man  is 
your  own  father,"  and  then  the  more  there  is  of  him 
the  better  it  is  for  me,  because  he  is  mine. 

You  have  taken  poor,  humble  elements,  and  con- 
structed a  God,  and  carried  him  up  into  infinities  and 
eternities  and  sovereignties  and  grandeurs,  that  are  in- 
dispensable to  the  conception  in  the  imagination  of 
men ;  but  if  you  leave  men  shivering  so  far  below  that 
their  sun  has  not  beams  long  enough  to  reach  them, 
they  die,  chilled  and  sunnnerless. 

God,  after  he  has  been  thus  exalted,  is  to  be  brought 
back  to  the  comprehension  of  men  in  various  ways,  and 
particularly  through  that  grandest  of  channels,  Jesus 
Christ,  as  I  shall  show  when  I  come  to  speak  of  him. 

For,  through  him  God  has  been  brought  near  by  a 
sense  of  his  paternity  in  government ;  by  a  sense  of 
reality  in  providence;  by  a  feeling  that  men  partake, 
through  sympathy,  of  the  capacity  of  the  Divine  nature 
to  endure  suffering,  —  not  the  suffering  of  the  weak, 
not  physical  suffering,  not  the  suffering  that  overtaxes 
the  powers,  but  that  suffering  which  belongs  to  love, 
and  without  which  we  can  hardly  conceive  of  a  faithful 
friend  or  a  truly  noble  being,  —  the  very  antithesis  of 
the  Greek  conception,  which  attempted  to  make  God  as 
perfect  as  marble,  until  he  was  little  more  than  a  mar- 
ble statue,  having  a  very  slight  relation  to  life,  and 
being  without  a  throb  of  affection. 

USE  OF  THE  IMAGINATION. 

It  is,  then,  the  known  carried  up  into  the  unknown 
that  develops  the  power  over  men  of  the  Divine  nature. 
First,  it  develops  power  of  imagination.  Theologians 

VOL.  III.  6 


122 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


are  accustomed  to  speak  of  the  imagination  as  though  a 
taint  rested  upon  it,  because  it  has  been  so  generally 
employed  in  coimection  with  the  merely  beautiful.  We 
think  of  it  as  an  embellishment  of  art,  or  as  that  which 
has  in  it  the  key  of  art.  It  has  to  do  with  the  beauti- 
ful that  poetry  largely  deals  in.  It  has  to  do  with  orna- 
mentation of  rhetoric  or  oratory.  It  has  to  do  with 
grace  of  movement,  with  symmetry  of  form,  and  with 
harmony  of  color.  But  while  the  imagination  certainly 
has  these  sensuous  functions,  it  has  also,  and  pre-emi- 
nently, a  higher  function.  It  works  w^ith  the  intellect ; 
with  the  philosophical  side  of  the  mind;  with  those 
faculties  which  take  in  things  that  are  not  embodied  to 
the  senses  ;  with  the  sense  of  reason ;  with  that  which 
some  people  say  intuates,  or  thinks  by  inspiration,  — 
whatever  you  choose  to  call  it  in  your  philosophy.  It 
is  that  quality  of  the  mind  by  which  a  man,  through  his 
reason,  is  enabled  to  take  in  the  conception  of  things 
which  do  not  present  themselves  to  the  senses.  As  the 
Apostle  (or  whoever  wTote  tlie  epistle  to  the  Hebrews ; 
it  was  not  Paul,  I  will  vouch !)  defines  it,  it  is  the  evi- 
dence of  things  not  seen."  It  is  that  conviction  which 
springs  up  in  the  mind,  of  the  reality  of  things  w^hich 
the  senses  cannot  prove. 

It  is  by  the  carrying  up  of  the  known  into  the  realm 
of  the  unknowable  that  men's  imaginations  are  quick- 
ened, and  by  long  dwelling  in  that  realm  that  they 
may  be  sanctified. 

It  is  of  "vital  importance  that  this  quality  be  awak- 
ened among  your  people.  I  do  not  believe  that  any- 
body can  be  a  Christian  who  has  not  imagination 
enough  to  say  and  to  feel,  "Our  Father  who  art  in 


PRACTICAL  USE  OF  THE  DIVINE  IDEAL.  123 

heaven/'  —  not  in  any  house,  not  anywhere  on  earth, 
but  in  heaven.  What  other  thing  in  men  can  climb 
the  ladder  clear  up  to  heaven  but  imagination  ?  How 
can  a  man  stand  and  tell  or  ask  all  the  world  to  rejoice 
at  things  not  seen,  through  any  other  faculty  than  the 
imagination  ? 

There  is  a  form  of  religion  that  may  be  a  hinderance  ; 
but  there  is  another  form  that  is  quickening,  that  is 
vitalizing,  that  is  indispensable  ;  and  there  is  nothing 
that  develops  it  more  than  the  presentation  of  a  con- 
ception of  the  Divine  Being  made  up  of  noble  elements 
carried  to  such  an  exaltation  that  they  transcend  knowl- 
edge, so  that  the  mind  goes  feeling,  feeling,  feeling  after 
God. 

As  in  those  vastest  palaces  in  Europe,  such  as  the 
Louvre,  one  wanders  from  hall  to  hall  and  from  room 
to  room,  until  his  feet  are  weary,  and  he  is  amazed  and 
lost  in  the  multitude  of  apartments,  so,  when  one  ex- 
plores tlie  nature  of  God,  however  familiar  he  may  be 
with  the  elemental  truths  of  it,  he  goes  on  and  on,  and 
apartment  after  apartment  opens  before  him,  until  his 
mind  is  lost;  but  it  is  not  lost  in  the  sense  of  being 
staggered.  It  is  a  being  lost  which  vitalizes.  The  sense 
is  prodigious  of  the  magnitude  of  such  a  Being. 

THE  HUMBLING  OF  SELF-ESTEEM. 

When  the  imagination  has  taken  hold  of  the  view  of 
the  immensity,  the  power,  the  righteousness,  and  the 
glory  of  God,  both  physically  and  morally,  it  is  through 
this  faculty,  and  almost  only  through  it,  that  the  natural 
conceit  which  is  found  in  very  many  men  can  be  legiti- 
mately met  and  put  down.    "  There  is  more  hope  of  a 


124 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


fool"  than  of  "a  man  wise  in  his  own  conceit/'  we 
are  told  by  the  cynical  king  of  old.  I  think  the  hard- 
est thing  to  do,  in  this  world,  is  to  put  down  a  man 
who  has  large  self-esteem,  and  who  is  constitutionally 
proud. 

The  men  of  old,  who  shook  the  world,  were  made  up 
in  that  way.  The  men  who  occupy  important  places, 
and  stand  as  pivots  on  which  great  events  move,  must 
be  made  up  of  good  stuff.  They  must  have  confidence 
in  themselves,  and  they  must  be  certain  of  their  con- 
victions. They  must  be  men  who  are  not  easily  broken 
or  bent.  And  yet  their  conceit  is  to  be  taken  out  of 
them,  and  their  pride  needs  to  be  humbled.  But  there 
is  nothing  that  I  know  of  which  can  ever  bring  such 
natures  down,  except  a  sense  of  God  that  shall  make 
their  own  littleness  overpowering  to  them. 

A  man  with  large  self-esteem,  looking  at  a  great 
thinker  or  one  capable  of  great  feeling,  may  say,  That 
man  knows  more  than  I  do  "  ;  but  the  distance  or  dis- 
proportion between  them  is  not  such  as  to  overwhelm 
him.  It  is  only  by  such  a  man's  comparing  his  own 
power  with  omnipotence  that  he  can  be  humbled.  It 
is  true  that  a  man  may  be  cudgeled  into  humility  by 
misfortunes,  or  by  abuse ;  but  under  such  circumstances 
his  power  will  be  broken,  and  he  will  resemble  flax 
that  has  been  retted  in  the  dew,  and  then  broken  in  a 
brake,  and  then  heckled,  and  then  spun  and  woven. 
A  man  may  be  beaten  by  his  contact  with  society  so 
that  he  shall  become  listless ;  or  so  that,  according  to 
the  familiar  saying,  he  shall  have  the  starch  taken  out  of 
him.  He  may  be  humbled,  but  he  has  lost  power  in 
the  operation.    There  is  a  sense,  however,  in  which  a 


PRACTICAL  USE  OF  THE  DIVINE  IDEAL.  125 

man  may  be  thoroughly  humbled,  and  yet  maintain  all 
the  vitality,  all  the  lunge,  all  the  push,  that  there  is  in 
strong  self-esteem. 

When  Job  was  assailed  by  his  comforters,  (Heaven 
help  a  man  who  has  such  comforters  !)  he  battled 
against  the  whole  of  them,  and  did  it  bravely,  and  suc- 
cessfully, too ;  but  w^hen  God  came  into  the  contro- 
versy, and  opened  sphere  after  sphere  of  knowledge, 
and  with  wonderful  kindness  said, "  Where  wert  thou 
wlien  I  thought,  and  where  wert  thou  when  I  created  ?  " 
and  made  the  heaven  and  the  earth  to  pass  before  Job, 
then  it  was  that  Job  said,  "  I  have  heard  of  thee  by  the 
hearing  of  the  ear ;  but  now  my  eye  seeth  thee,  where- 
fore I  abhor  myself" 

It  is  only  by  a  sense  of  God  vitalized,  radiant,  burn- 
ing, that  the  pride  of  character,  which  has  in  it  so 
much  power  and  usefulness,  can  be  brought  into  that 
mood  of  humility  which  shall  make  it  as  sweet  as  it  is 
strong. 

Paul  went  through  the  same  experience.  He  said, 
"  I  was  alive  without  the  law^  once  [by  '  law '  here  is 
meant  the  revelation  of  the  will  of  God,  and  the  meas- 
ure of  the  Divine  ideal,  which  is  given  to  man]  ;  but 
when  the  law  came,  sin  revived,  and  I  died."  He  was 
death-struck  at  the  view. 

GROWTH  OF  AN  UNDERSTANDING  OF  CHRIST. 

I  have  said  that  this  brings  down  conceit,  and  hum- 
bles a  man.  I  go  further :  I  say  that  this  conception, 
beginning  in  known  things,  and  going  up  into  the 
realm  of  the  unknown,  and  then  coming  back  to  the 
sphere  of  familiar  knowledge,  is  an  indispensable  pre- 


126 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


requisite  to  an  intelligent  and  large  conception  of  the 
Lord  Jesus  Christ,  as  God  manifest  in  the  flesh.  For 
you  must  remember  that  it  was  not  until  the  "  fullness 
of  the  times  "  that  Christ  came.  There  was  an  order 
in  the  development  of  the  world ;  and  it  is  not  said  in 
so  many  words,  but  it  is  implied,  and  the  facts  show 
that  it  was  not  until  the  full  development  of  the  char- 
acter of  God,  as  it  is  made  known  in  the  Old  Testa- 
ment, that  the  distinctive  qualities  which  Christ  brought 
to  light  and  evinced  in  his  life  could  be  fully  appre- 
ciated. For  example,  every  man,  I  think,  before  he 
can  understand  meekness  and  gentleness  and  sweetness 
and  forgivingness  in  any  person,  must  understand  the 
magnitude  and  the  power  of  that  person.  The  events, 
the  interpretations,  and  the  applications  in  government 
of  the  Divine  nature  and  attributes,  in  the  Old  Testa- 
ment, have  no  parallel  in  the  New  Testament,  —  not 
even  in  the  Apocalypse.  That  supreme  work  of  the 
Divine  nature  which  Christ  came  to  interpret  and  to 
illustrate,  and  which  must  precede  the  believing  of  the 
Lord  Jesus  Christ,  is  delineated  in  the  Old  Testament 
Scriptures  as  it  is  delineated  nowhere  else.  All  the 
elements  of  spiritual  truth  which  are  revealed  respect- 
ing God  in  the  New  Testament  have  their  first  germi- 
nant  form  in  the  Old  Testament. 

THE    NEW  TESTAMENT    SEEN    THROUGH  THE  OLD  TESTA- 
MENT. 

I  do  not  know  where  in  the  New  Testament  you  can 
find  any  such  dramatic  and  soul-shaking  representa- 
tions of  God  as  were  made  to  Moses  ;  as  were  made  to 
the  Prophet  on  the  side  of  the  mountain  where  he  had 


MACTICAL  USE  OF  'THE  DIVINE  IDEAL.  127 

fled  ;  as  were  made  in  the  later  prophecies,  —  for  in- 
stance, those  of  Isaiah  and  Jeremiah ;  and  as  were 
made  in  the  Book  of  Job,  —  the  mightiest  drama  ever 
written,  and  one  which  leaves  all  other  dramas  poor 
and  pulseless  in  the  comparison.  I  know  not  where 
else  you  can  find  any  such  description  of  the  glory,  the 
largeness,  the  infinity,  and  the  eternity  of  the  Divine 
nature  as  is  contained  in  the  Old  Testament.  You 
certainly  cannot  find  it  in  the  Gospels.  You  can  find 
it  only  to  a  slight  degree,  if  at  all,  in  the  Epistles.  The 
Apocalypse  is  pictorial,  opalescent,  and  wonderful ;  but 
if  you  search  you  will  find  that  most  of  its  figures 
and  its  sublimest  scenes  are  but  reproductions  from 
the  Old  Testament,  —  that  they  were  found  in  the  Old 
Jewish  Scriptures  in  one  form  or  another  before  they 
were  put  into  the  drapery  of  that  wonderful  later 
book. 

Every  man,  therefore,  should  go  to  the  New  Testa- 
ment through  the  Old  Testament,  either  actually  or 
virtually.  If  he  reads  and  accepts  the  representations 
of  the  Divine  nature  and  government  as  they  are  found 
in  the  Old  Testament,  then  he  goes  to  the  New  Testa- 
ment as  through  an  open  door,  or  an  illuminated  pas- 
sage-way. And  to  one  who  goes  to  the  New  Testament 
thus,  there  is  great  power  in  Christ. 

Gentleness  in  Him  that  delivered  the  law  upon  Sinai 
is  gentleness  indeed.  There  is  nothing  so  gentle  as  the 
touch  of  one  who  is  dying  of  exhaustion  ;  but  gentle- 
ness under  such  circumstances  is  weakness,  and  is  as 
nothing.  There  is  nothing  more  common  than  the 
relf-renunciation  of  a  man  who  cannot  help  himself. 
There  is  nothing  in  the  world  so  empty  as  virtue  when 


128 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


a  person  does  not  care  what  he  has  done,  and  would 
just  as  lief  have  done  one  thing  as  another.  Benevo- 
lence, where  it  is  only  absolute  indifference  to  moral 
quality,  is  very  easily  understood,  and  is  very  cheap. 
But  when  God  is  represented,  in  the  grandeur  of  his 
power,  as  One  who  is  controlling  the  universe  for  the 
upbuilding  of  a  future  kingdom ;  as  One  who  loves 
righteousness ;  as  One  who  stands  forever,  saying,  I 
am  patient  with  sin,  I  am  long-suffering,  I  am  full  of 
kindness,  and  rather  than  that  men  should  suffer,  I 
suffer  " ;  as  One  in  whom  leniency  and  meekness  are 
attributes  of  thunderous  power,  of  universal  unob- 
structed government,  of  sovereignty  and  majesty,  — 
then  these  elements  have  a  meaning  which  they  could 
not  have,  standing  simply  and  only  by  themselves. 

Thus  Jesus  Christ  sprouts  out  of  the  Old  Testament; 
Messiah  is  a  blossom  of  the  God  of  the  old  Hebrews  ; 
and  you  need  to  see  the  stem  and  the  leaves,  as  well  as 
the  blossom.  The  salient  familiar  traits  of  Christ  do 
not  receive  illustration,  and  have  not  power  with  men, 
unless  they  are  shown  upon  a  background  of  the  un- 
knowable, —  that  is,  of  God,  in  such  transcendent  con- 
dition, extent,  and  altitude,  as  passes  knowledge. 

You  will  find  this  same  thing  exemplified  in  the 
New  Testament ;  as,  for  instance,  where  our  Saviour, 
wishing  to  teach  that  lesson  which  is  most  fundamental, 
slowest  to  be  learned,  and  most  easily  forgotten,  know- 
ing that  he  came  from  God,  and  went  to  God  again, 
took  a  towel,  and  girded  himself,  and  washed  the  dis- 
ciples' feet.  For  Peter  or  John  to  put  a  towel  around 
him,  and  wash  the  feet  of  his  fellow-disciples,  though  it 
would  have  been  something,  to  be  sure,  would  have 


PRACTICAL  USE  OF  THE  DIVINE  IDEAL.  129 


been  a  very  small  matter ;  but  for  the  Master  to  stand 
in  the  full  glow  and  consciousness  of  his  everlasting 
divinity,  and  do  it,  was  a  very  significant  thing.  The 
humiliation,  standing  on  the  ground  of  Divine  con- 
sciousness, was  most  powerful. 

So  you  find  in  Philippians  the  statement  that  "  Christ, 
being  in  the  form  of  God,  thought  it  not  robbery  to  be 
equal  with  God ;  hut  made  himself  of  no  reputation, 
and  took  upon  him  the  form  of  a  servant,  and  was 
made  in  the  likeness  of  men:  and  being  found  in  fash- 
ion as  a  man,  he  humbled  himself,  and  became  obedient 
unto  death,  even  the  death  of  the  cross."  You  see,  in 
this  case,  that  the  humiliation  on  the  part  of  Christ 
was  voluntary,  and  that  it  was  over  against  a  sense  that 
he  was  very  God.  Another  similar  instance  is  that 
which  is  recorded  in  the  opening  of  Hebrews,  where  it 
is  said,  "God,  who  at  sundry  times  and  in  divers 
manners  spake  in  time  past  unto  the  fathers  by  the 
prophets,  hath  in  these  last  days  spoken  unto  us  by  his 
Son."  Here,  over  against  that  consciousness  of  justice 
which  existed  in  the  Jewish  nation,  Christ  is  evermore 
depicted.  And  the  subtle,  unconscious  influence  of 
these  antithetical  passages  lies  in  the  philosophical 
ground  which  I  have  been  attempting  to  illustrate. 

KEFLECTED  LIGHT. 

In  view  of  the  statement  that  everybody  must  vir- 
tually come  to  the  New  Testament  through  the  Old, 
you  may  ask  me,  "Do  you  not  believe  that  a  Chris- 
tianly  bred  child  in  these  days  when  the  Old  Testa- 
ment is  less  read  and  taught  than  it  used  to  be,  a  child 
that  has  received  instruction  in  the  New  Testament 

.6*  I 


130 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


alone,  and  has  been  taught  what  is  right  and  what  is 
wrong,  what  is  virtuous  and  what  is  unvirtuous,  is 
salvable,  and  may  enter  the  kingdom  of  heaven  ? " 
Undoubtedly  I  do ;  because,  although  the  child  is  im- 
perfectly educated,  the  Old  Testament  is  not  left  out. 
It  is  in  the  mother,  and  the  child  gets  it. 

Eeflected  light  is  a  thousand  times  more  than  direct 
light.  Direct  light  is  the  most  brilliant ;  but  yet,  in 
every  forest,  under  every  rock,  behind  every  house, 
everywhere,  there  are  gradations  of  reflected  light. 

Not  only  does  the  truth  of  God  exist  positively  and 
directly  in  this  world,  but  it  is  reflected  in  a  thousand 
ways.  There  are  truths  of  God  that  come  out  of  laws, 
out  of  institutions,  out  of  manners  and  customs  in 
Christianly  bred  communities ;  there  is  a  truth  of  God 
that  comes  out  of  men's  characters,  that  have  been 
incarnated  and  embalmed  ;  and  you  get  a  secondary 
light  of  truth  where  you  do  not  get  the  first  downfall 
of  the  light  of  truth.  And  so  the  child  of  Bible-trained 
parents  may  be  educated  to  know  God  through  Christ 
Jesus  without  having  read  a  word  of  the  Old  Testa- 
ment. 

POWER  OF  THE  OLD  TESTAMENT. 

Many  parents  do  not  dare  to  let  their  children  go 
to  the  Old  Testament.  They  say  there  are  in  it  many 
things  that  shock  the  refinement  of  modern  Christians, 
and  that  they  do  not  want  their  children  to  see.  There 
are,  it  is  true,  many  things  in  the  history  of  the  race 
which  are  not  agreeable  ;  so  there  are  many  things  in 
the  growth  of  every  child  that  are  not  agreeable  ;  and 
we  take  him  off  to  the  nursery,  and  do  not  show  him 
in  the  parlor ;  but  they  are  necessary  parts  of  life, 


PRACTICAL  USE  OF  THE  UIVINE  IDEAL.  131 

though  they  do  not  belong  to  polite  society.  And 
there  are  parts  of  the  Old  Testament  which  do  not 
belong  to  polite  literature  ;  but  they  belong  to  life, 
notwithstanding.  Life  has  knots  and  twists  in  it 
which  must  be  taken  account  of  in  a  true  delineation. 
Old  Cromwell  wanted  to  be  painted  with  the  wart  on 
his  face  ;  the  Old  Testament  paints  the  warts  on  the 
faces  of  its  heroes. 

Now,  if  parents  are  fastidious  about  the  Old  Testa- 
ment, the  consequence  is  that  their  children  are  weak- 
ened, unless  they  get  its  reflected  light,  —  and  then 
they  are  not  half  so  strong  as  they  would  otherwise  be. 
I  would  rather  take  my  child  by  the  hand,  and  walk 
with  him  right  straight  through  from  Genesis  to  the 
last  book  of  the  Old  Testament,  and  read  every  bit  to 
him,  unfolding  and  explaining  it,  than  to  have  him 
deprived  of  the  power  which  comes  from  familiarity 
with  it,  —  all  the  time  keeping  before  his  mind  the 
thread  of  moral  principle  which  runs  through  it ;  for 
there  is  not  more  certainly  a  spinal  cord  that  runs 
down  to  the  lumbar  vertebrae  than  there  is  a  mag- 
nificent idea  of  God  running  right  through  the  Old 
Testament  from  beginning  to  end,  —  of  a  God  known, 
but  unknowable  ;  of  a  God  righteous,  and  seeking  to 
build  up  righteousness  in  his  creatures;  of  a  God  ad- 
ministering reward  and  penalty;  of  a  God  inspiring 
love  and  fear.  And  having  opened  up  the  sweet 
encouragement  and  hope  which  are  so  abundantly 
to  be  found  in  the  Old  Testament,  I  would  then 
open  up  the  New  Testament  view  of  God's  interior 
disposition,  as  made  manifest  through  the  Lord  Jesus 
Christ. 


132 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


I  beseech  of  you,  do  not  be  ashamed  of  the  Old 
Testament.  If  you  are  ashamed  of  it,  God  grant  that 
you  may  suffer  persecution ;  for  I  do  not  think  a  man 
ever  suffered  persecution,  and  fought  bravely  against 
it,  that  he  did  not  take  refuge  in  the  Old  Testament. 
It  came  out  of  storms,  and  it  is  helpful  to  men  who 
are  in  the  midst  of  storms.  There  is  bone  in  it, 
—  bone  that  has  flesh  and  skin  on  it,  and  that  is 
clothed  with  beauty.  It  is  a  wilderness ;  there  are 
some  rudenesses  in  it,  to  be  sure,  but  these  rude- 
nesses were  unavoidable,  and  they  were  not  without 
some  use. 

The  Old  Testament  is  wonderful  in  many  ways,  — 
wonderful  in  its  growths,  wonderful  in  its  visions,  won- 
derful in  its  total  effect ;  and  it  is  indispensable  as  a 
background  to  the  New  Testament. 

As  mountains  would  be  undesirable  to  live  in,  but 
as,  nevertheless,  they  are  fathers  of  all  the  streams  that 
make  the  level  plain  sweet  and  beautiful,  so  the  Old 
Testament,  though  it  contains  some  things  which  are 
not  attractive,  is  the  source  of  those  truths  which  run 
into  the  New  Testament,  and  make  it  fertile. 

SACREDNESS  OF  THE  NAME  OF  GOD. 

Now,  in  preaching,  let  me  say  first,  do  not  fritter 
away  power  or  reverence,  by  a  tripping  use  of  the 
Divine  name.  I  am  not  reverential  except  through 
one  or  two  faculties.  Eeverence  in  me  is  an  auxiliary 
element.  It  is  merely  subordinate  to  others.  I  re- 
vere anything  that  is  beautiful.  I  revere  Christ  more 
than  I  do  Jehovah.  This  is  my  infirmity.  Therefore 
I  make  a  personal  equation  when  I  study  the  subject 


PRACTICAL  USE  OF  THE  DIVINE  IDEAL.  133 

of  divinity,  knowing  that  I  shall  be  deficient  on  that 
side,  and  endeavor  to  make  up  the  deficiency.  But 
even  /  cannot  endure  the  theological  familiarity  witk 
the  name  of  God  which  so  largely  prevails  among  min- 
isters. 

Mr.  Arnold  says  that  men  talk  of  God  as  though  he 
were  a  neighbor  just  around  the  corner,  that  everybody 
knew  all  about.    It  is  shocking  to  me. 

The  Hebrews  had  a  name  which  they  never  men- 
tioned. This  was  true  not  only  of  them,  but  of  many 
outlying  nations.  They  had  periphrastic  words  or 
terms  which  they  used  for  expressing  the  unpro- 
nounceable name  of  God.  As  they  drew  near  to  it, 
undoubtedly  it  threw  a  sort  of  shadow  upon  them, 
and  veneration  was  excited  in  their  bosom  by  it. 

Well,  that  is  a  trait  of  human  nature.  If  you  ob- 
serve, you  will  see  that  the  things  which  to  you  are 
the  dearest,  the  noblest,  the  most  precious,  are  the 
things  which  you  are  the  least  likely  to  speak  of 
Hence  the  most  exquisite  thoughts  of  love  are  those 
which  are  never  uttered.  You  shrink  from  utterins: 
them.  It  is  not  shame  that  prevents  your  speaking 
of  them,  but  a  reason  of  nature  which  God  put  in 
you,  and  they  lie  deep  and  unpronounced.  There  are 
many  natures,  fit  to  be  angel-natures,  that  would  die 
rather  than  speak  of  things  in  them  that  it  is  their 
glory  to  possess.  And  there  is  an  application  of  this 
to  the  way  in  which  God  should  be  preached. 

God  is  my  heavenly  Father.  I  used  to  take  liberties 
with  my  earthly  father,  but  I  took  liberties  with  him 
only  so  far,  and  in  some  things ;  and  it  was  all  the 
more  sweet  because  there  was  a  background  in  him 


134 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


that  I  never  took  liberties  with.  This  always,  as  it 
were,  gave  me  a  sense  of  the  strength  and  the  treasure 
that  I  had  in  him. 

The  very  name  of  God  ought  to  be  sacred. 

THE  preacher's  CONCEPTION  OF  GOD  TO  BE  PRACTICAL. 

In  the  development  of  the  Divine  nature,  do  not 
always  —  do  not  ever,  except  in  your  study  —  stand  at 
God's  center  and  work  out  from  that:  stand  at  the 
soul's  center ;  for  it  is  not  your  calling  to  attempt  to 
construct  a  Divine  conception,  except  for  its  uses.  The 
knowledge  of  the  Divine  nature  which  you  gather  is  to 
be  employed  as  the  bread  of  life,  as  medicine  for  the 
soul ;  and,  therefore,  in  the  interpretation  of  the  Divine 
nature,  while  you  may  make  yourselves  strong  and 
wise  by  standing  at  the  center  of  the  Divine,  and  then 
logically  balancing  attribute  and  quality  with  facts  of 
being ;  while  as  an  exercise,  and  as  a  preparation,  that 
may  be  allowable ;  and  while,  sometimes,  in  that  part 
of  your  ministry  where  you  are  instructing  your  con- 
gregation on  grounds  that  are  to  constitute  the  foun- 
dation of  some  view,  you  may  delineate  from  the 
Divine  center;  yet,  mainly,  you  are  physicians,  called 
to  prescribe  for  the  wants  of  men,  to  eradicate  the 
bad  and  develop  the  good  in  them ;  and  therefore  your 
teaching  in  regard  to  the  Divine  nature  must  be  largely 
relative  to  human  necessity.  This  is  an  important  ele- 
ment in  preaching. 

What  is  fundamental  in  theology  is  not  necessarily 
essential  to  a  practical  conception  of  the  Divine  na- 
ture ;  for  many  things  are  indispensable  in  the  construc- 
tion of  a  system  which  are  not  at  all  indispensable  in  the 


PRACTICAL  USE  OF  THE  DIVINE  IDEAL.  135 

recovery  of  a  soul.  Predestination  is  the  central  point 
in  the  scheme  of  Calvinism ;  knock  that  point  out,  and 
you  cannot  hold  this  system  together;  but  revivals 
will  spring  up,  and  men  will  be  converted  and  become 
Christians,  without  ever  having  heard  of  that  doctrine. 
It  is  necessary  for  a  certain  logical  development  of  an 
idea  or  a  philosophy,  but  it  is  not  necessary  as  a  cura- 
tive process  for  the  depraved  heart. 

You  are  to  bear  in  mind  that  you  cannot  develop  the 
whole  of  the  Divine  nature.  You  can  form  a  generic 
conception  of  God,  and  you  are  to  do  it ;  and  then  you 
are  to  take  part  after  part  of  that  generic  idea,  and 
adapt  it  to  the  wants  of  men. 

That  is  the  example  of  the  Old  Testament ;  it  is  pre- 
eminently the  example  of  the  New^  Testament ;  and, 
whether  their  theory  be  that  or  not,  it  is  tlie  example 
of  men  in  their  employment  of  the  knowledge  of  God 
for  the  recovery  of  souls  from  sin  to  righteousness. 
Human  want,  man's  need,  therefore,  must  decide  how 
the  Divine  nature  should  be  preached. 

SYMMETRICAL  PREACHING. 

This  determines  a  question  about  which  there  has 
been  a  great  deal  of  confusion  of  thought,  namely, 
the  question  of  proportion  of  truth,  or,  in  other  words, 
of  symmetry  of  view.  People  sometimes  say  of  a  man 
who  preaches  under  the  inspiration  of  human  life, 
"He  is  a  good  minister,  but  he  preaches  all  on  one 
side."  There  are  theologians  who  preach  under  the 
inspiration  of  a  system  of  truth,  and  not  under  the  in- 
spiration of  human  life  ;  who  are  all  the  time  afraid 
that  something  will  happen  to  batter  that  system  in 


136 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


on  this  side,  or  pull  it  out  on  that  side ;  who,  if  they 
preach  one  view  one  Sunday,  think,  for  no  reason  in 
creation  than  because  they  preached  that  view,  that 
next  Sunday  they  must  preach  the  view  which  is  its 
natural  antithesis ;  and  who  thus  go  on  preaching 
around  the  ribs  of  an  imaginary  system,  to  keep  it 
from  being  lopsided 

Now,  in  the  first  place,  you  do  not  know  enough  to 
do  it ;  nor  do  any  others  know  enough  to  do  it ;  and 
more 's  the  pity  if  they  think  they  do.  The  power  of 
developing  the  Divine  nature  in  its  universal  forms  is 
not  given  to  us  ;  and  nowhere  else  is  this  more  posi- 
tively declared  (to  the  shame  of  arrogant  thinkers  and 
teachers)  than  in  the  Bible  itself.  You  cannot  yet  tell 
all  that  there  is  in  the  Divine  nature ;  and  until  you 
can,  you  cannot  make  a  symmetrical,  center-poised 
view  of  God.  You  can  develop  as  much  of  the  Divine 
nature  as  is  adapted  to  man,  or  as  much  as  is  relative 
to  his  want;  but  even  that  part  that  is  tangible,  or 
comprehensible,  or  within  the  horizon  of  faith,  is  to  be 
used  in  due  proportions :  not,  however,  on  account  of 
any  imaginary  dignity  which  there  is  in  theology,  nor 
because  of  any  fear  that  you  will  pain  God.  I  do  not 
think  God  cares  very  much  for  your  sermons  anyhow ; 
but  he  does  care  for  men's  souls.  I  suspect  that  he 
cares  more  for  that  end  of  the  church  than  he  does  for 
this  end,  — though  there  is  a  difference  of  opinion  on 
that  subject. 

When  my  ministry  was  in  the  West,  what  did  I  find  ? 
A  loose  and  heterogeneous  mass  of  men  who  had  come 
from  every  where,  —  a  detritus  from  the  stream  of 
emigration.    As  at  the  Delta  of  the  Mississippi  is  gath- 


PRACTICAL  USE  OF  THE  DIVINE  IDEAL.  137 


ered  refuse  which  floats  down  from  the  region  above, 
so  in  the  West  were  gathered  human  beings  from 
almost  every  nation  on  the  globe ;  and  there  the 
principle  of  individualism  was  the  predominant  one. 
I  insisted  upon  the  sanctity  of  the  Sabbath  day ;  I  in- 
sisted upon  the  absolute  necessity  of  churches,  and  of 
church  forms  ;  and  I  insisted  upon  the  indispensable - 
ness  of  authority,  and  of  obedience  to  that  authority. 
I  preached  Sunday  after  Sunday  against  individualism, 
and  in  favor  of  association. 

By  and  by  I  was  transferred  to  the  East ;  and  there  I 
found  society  hard-ribbed,  vigorous.  Men  were  lopped 
off  on  every  side,  to  make  them  fit  into  crowded  pop- 
ulations. Society  was  tyrannical.  And  ,ever  since  I 
came  East  I  have  fought  society,  and  tried  to  get  indi- 
vidual men  to  be  free,  independent,  and  large. 

I  was  right  both  times.  I  did  not  care  for  abstract 
theories.  My  object  was  to  get  men.  When,  by  reason 
of  their  condition,  they  needed  one  side  of  truth,  I  kept 
pouring  that  side  of  trutli  on  them.  Not  that  I  neg- 
lected instructively  to  bring  up  other  sides  of  truth  ; 
but  I  made  predominant  that  side  which  they  were 
most  in  need  of.  The  instrument  with  which  I  molded 
them  was  adapted  to  the  state  which  they  were  in.  In 
the  West  I  tried  to  bring  men  together  in  collective 
bodies  for  the  sake  of  developing  more  power  and  bet- 
ter fruit ;  and  in  the  East  I  tried  to  get  men  out  of 
their  Pharisaism,  so  that  they  might  breathe  freer,  and, 
like  trees  that  stand  in  the  open  field,  grow  broader, 
throwing  out  side-branches,  and  developing  the  glory 
of  society. 

Now,  if  I  had  to  study  the  proportions  of  a  philoso- 


138  LECTURES  ON  PKEACttlNG. 

phy,  I  should  probably  study  in  such  a  way  that  I 
would  save  my  philosophy,  but  lose  my  men. 

Ninety-nine  times  out  of  a  hundred,  when  you  want 
to  do  anything  with  promiscuous,  common  people,  you 
are  obliged  to  exaggerate.  If  you  take  one  needle  and 
push  it  into  a  round  ball  of  yarn  you  have  no  difficulty 
in  making  it  go  through  ;  but  if  a  man  says,  "  It  is 
not  fair  to  take  one  needle  alone,  here  is  the  whole 
paper,  they  must  all  have  a  chance,"  and  puts  them 
into  the  ball,  and  pushes  them,  together  they  are  as 
blunt  as  the  handle  of  a  chisel.  Fifty  needles  pushed 
in  a  bunch  do  not  prick  anybody.  And  if  you  say, 
"Now  I  am  going  to  preach  the  doctrine  of  God's 
moral  nature  ;  but  then,  I  am  going  to  define  it,  and 
explain  it,  so  as  to  take  away  all  possible  ground  of 
objection,"  you  will  produce  no  impression.  You  will 
try  to  maintain  your  central  truth  or  system,  without 
any  regard  to  the  salvation  of  men. 

You  bear  down  on  conscience  in  such  a  way  that 
every  man  in  your  congregation  understands  what  you 
mean,  and  is  affected  by  your  discourse ;  but  an  old 
instructed  man  says,  "  Well,  yes,  that  was  true  ;  but 
then,  it  was  exaggerated."  Of  course  it  was.  What 
does  a  microscope  do  but  exaggerate  ?  What  does  any 
one  of  our  tentative  processes  do  but  exaggerate  ?  Ex- 
aggeration is  often  necessary  where  certain  effects  are 
to  be  produced. 

In  malarial  districts  they  give  men  quinine  ;  and  if 
they  were  to  act  on  the  principle  that  there  must  be  a 
symmetrical  system  supported,  on  the  principle  that 
medicine  must  be  administered  proportionally,  having 
given  a  dose  of  quinine,  they  would  have  to  give  a  cor- 


PRACTICAL  USE  OF  THE  DIVINE  IDEAL.  139 


responding  dose  of  something  else  to  balance  it.  Is 
that  the  way  the  medical  practice  is  carried  on  ?  Who 
cries  for  symmetry  in  medicine  ?  Symmetry  in  health 
is  what  we  want. 

VARIATIONS  OF  PREACHING. 

One  class  of  persons  in  your  congregations  will  re-^ 
quire  one  kind  of  treatment,  and  another  class  will 
require  another  kind  of  treatment ;  and  they  should  be 
made  to  understand  that,  whatever  system  you  employ, 
or  whatever  mode  of  presentation  you  employ,  you  em- 
ploy it  with  reference  to  the  welfare  of  the  souls  of  men. 

If,  for  instance,  a  company  of  poor,  ignorant  servant- 
girls,  who  are  perceptive,  who  are  sensuous  in  their 
nature,  that  is,  live  by  things  seen  and  felt ;  who  act 
according  to  rules  and  regulations  ;  who  fulfill  their 
duties  by  hours  ticked  off  on  the  clock,  doing  first  this 
thing,  then  that  thing,  and  then  that,  —  if  such  a  com- 
pany of  servant-girls  should  come  into  your  congrega- 
tion, you  must  conform  your  teaching  to  the  state  which 
they  are  in ;  only,  it  must  always  aim  at  carrying  them 
a  stage  higher.  You  must  go  down  to  them,  —  not  to 
stay  with  them  ;  not  to  encourage  them  to  stay  where 
they  are ;  not  to  treat  them  as  if  they  could  not  be  car- 
ried higher ;  but  to  lift  them  up.  You  must  minister 
to  their  want  in  such  a  way  as  to  raise  them  from  one 
elevation  to  another ;  and  they  will  take  in  more  truth 
and  more  truth,  until  they  become  well  versed  in  those 
things  which  pertain  to  their  interest  as  immortal 
beings. 

If  you  go  into  a  congregation  of  men  who  are  edu- 
cated in  commerce,  you  must  adapt  your  preaching  to 


140 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


their  biases,  and  use  terms  with  which  they  are  famil- 
iar ;  only,  in  adapting  yourself  to  their  biases  you  must 
see  to  it  that  you  lead  them  into  another  and  a  larger 
sphere  of  thought  and  life.  You  cannot  deal  with 
humble  folks  (who  are  humble  by  nature),  you  cannot 
deal  with  limber-backed,  willowy  folks,  as  you  can  with 
old,  tough,  sturdy  men.  Why,  there  will  be  men  in 
your  congregations  on  whose  minds  storms  of  truth  will 
fall  like  dews  on  an  alligator's  back,  and  what  are  you 
going  to  do  with  such  men  ? 

There  is  a  time  for  preaching  damnation.  There  are 
moods  and  states  in  dealing  with  which  the  element  of 
fear  is  indispensable. 

I  would  not  thank  anybody  to  go  with  a  prairie  plow 
and  six  yoke  of  oxen  into  my  garden  or  on  to  my  farm, 
among  my  shrubs  and  trees,  and  roots  and  flowers ;  and 
yet,  if  I  had  a  fresh  piece  of  prairie  land,  wire-bound 
and  rooted  a  foot  deep,  nothing  but  that  plow  and 
those  oxen  would  rip  through  it  and  turn  it  bottom- 
side  up. 

There  are  times  and  circumstances  in  which  the  fear 
element  is  indispensable,  and  people  seem  to  think  that 
because  at  such  times  and  under  such  circumstances 
you  ply  the  dormant  senses,  and  strike  through  the 
thick  hide  with  fear,  therefore  you  must  always  do  it. 

Men  say  to  a  minister,  "  Ah  !  I  remember  what  soul- 
stirring  sermons  you  preached  when  you  were  in  the 
country ;  and  do  not  you  remember  how  you  brought 
in  those  old  sinners  ?  but  you  have  given  up  preaching 
such  sermons  now."  Well,  if  a  man  was  in  the  same 
place,  and  remained  in  the  same  state,  he  ought  to  be 
preached  to  in  the  same  wa^ ;  but  he  ought  to  change, 


PRACTICAL  USE  OF  THE  DIVINE  IDEAL.  141 

and  come  to  a  higher  plane  of  development,  and  need 
different  preaching. 

1  hold  that  the  nearer  men  live  to  matter,  the  more 
sensuous  must  be  the  representations  which  are  made 
to  them.  In  other  words,  they  cannot  understand  any- 
thing which  does  not  approximate  to  their  nature.  It 
is  right  to  bear  down  upon  men  with  the  lower  forms 
of  revelation  of  the  Divine  government  when  it  is  neces- 
sary, but  only  when  it  is  necessary.  It  is  not  right  to 
carry  the  blazing  torch  of  hell-fire  all  the  way  througli 
your  ministrations  just  out  of  respect  to  a  doctrine. 

The  nobler  elements  of  the  human  soul  are  those 
which,  when  they  behold  beauty,  recognize  it ;  and 
when  they  behold  right,  accept  it.  If  you  can  bring 
men  up  to  that  state  in  which  they  are  cultivated  mor- 
ally, and  in  which  they  can  be  made  to  accept  the 
higher  way  from  the  noblest  motives,  that  is  the  better 
and  the  truer  course.  If  you  cannot  do  that,  fall  back 
and  see  if  you  cannot  take  them  on  the  next  lower 
range.  If  you  fail  there,  take  them  on  the  next  lower 
if  you  can.  Thus  keep  going  down  till  you  find  where 
they  can  be  reached.  Your  preaching  should  be  such 
as  to  arouse  men  wherever  they  are.  And  its  charac- 
ter must  be  determined  by  what  you  want  to  accom- 
plish. Do  not  pour  down  rain  and  hail  where  smiles 
would  be  better.  Do  not  use  the  double  fist  w^hen  the 
wave  of  welcome  would  be  better.  Act  with  intelli- 
gence in  these  respects. 

HUMAN  NEED,  THE  PREACHER'S  GUIDE. 

I  find  no  more  incompatibility  in  the  ministries  of 
men,  between  a  belief  in  a  great  and  terrible  future,  in 


142 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


darkness,  in  desperate  sorrows,  in  awful  catastrophes, 
such  as  it  makes  the  soul  quiver  to  think  of,  —  I  find 
no  more  incompatibility  or  inconsistency  between  this 
belief  and  a  belief  in  the  love  of  Christ  that  breathed 
on  Calvary,  than  I  do  between  the  declarations  of 
Sinai  and  the  declarations  of  Calvary.  But  this  I 
think :  that  the  ministry  which  develops  any  one  side 
of  the  Divine  character  always  and  everywhere,  whether 
it  be  the  highest  or  the  lowest  side,  relatively,  witliout 
a  consideration  of  its  uses,  is  an  imperfect  ministry  ; 
and  that,  in  delineating  the  Divine  nature  and  the  Di- 
vine government,  when  you  come  to  administer  that 
which  you  know,  you  must  stand  at  the  center  of  the 
human  soul ;  you  must  be  a  man  among  men ;  you 
must  weep  with  those  that  weep,  and  rejoice  wdth  those 
that  rejoice ;  you  must  know  your  people  so  as  to  be 
able  to  meet  their  want.  Sometimes  it  will  be  tonic, 
and  sometimes  it  will  be  diluent,  that  they  need  ;  some- 
times it  will  be  courage  and  hope,  and  sometimes  it 
will  be  an  influence  which  shall  counteract  presumption 
and  overweening  confidence.  Go  to  the  inexhaustible 
armory  of  God,  and  bring  back  and  serve  out  to  the 
people  those  armaments  which  shall  make  the  weak 
strong,  and  the  strong  stronger,  and  by  which  even  the 
babes  shall  be  nourished  into  a  true  Christian  man- 
hood. 


VI. 


THE  MANIFESTATIOj^  OF  GOD  THROUGH 
CHRIST. 

February  27,  1874. 

HAVE,  for  the  last  three  lectures,  spoken 
on  the  subject  of  the  Divine  Nature  ;  and 
more  particularly  as  it  is  developed  in  the 
Old  Testament  Scriptures,  or  by  our  reflec- 
tion on  its  relations  to  nature  and  government.  This 
afternoon  I  wish  to  speak  of  that  manifestation  of  the 
Divine  nature  which  is  in  Jesus  Christ. 

There  was  in  the  life  of  the  Saviour  as  regular  a 
development,  both  external  and  internal,  as  ever  takes 
place  in  the  life  of  any  man.  Coming  into  the  world, 
and  assuming  the  human  condition,  he  passed  through 
it  from  the  beginning  to  the  end.  He  grew  in  stature." 
He  "  increased  in  wisdom."  Not  simply  did  he  pass  as 
by  name  into  human  conditions,  but  he  partook  of  hu- 
man life.  When  he  entered  upon  the  ministry  he  was 
a  teacher  of  morals  and  of  piety.  He  had  in  himself 
qualities  which  belonged  aforetime  to  the  old  Hebrew 
teachers,  and  much  that  was  in  common  with  the  best 
Rabbis  of  his  time. 


144 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


CHRIST'S  PERSONALITY  THE  CENTER  OF  HIS  INSTRUCTION. 

But  there  was  one  distinguishing  element  which  ap- 
peared early,  which  grew  more  and  more  emphatic, 
and  which  at  last  showed  that  it  was  the  very  center 
of  all  his  instruction ;  and  that  was  that  he  himself,  in 
his  own  personal  life  and  being,  was  the  Truth,  and 
that  all  other  truth,  higher  or  lower,  had  its  validity 
in  faith  in  him,  on  the  part  of  those  who  heard  him. 

He  was  unlike  any  other  teacher.  No  prophet  had 
ever  yet  said,  after  instructing  his  people :  "  All  this 
knowledge  ripens  and  receives  its  true  genius  in  you, 
when  you  fall  in  love  with  me."  No  Apostle,  illumi- 
nated as  they  had  been  by  Christ's  teaching,  ever  dared 
to  say,  after  the  most  eloquent  expositions  of  truth : 
"  I  am  the  center  of  my  own  argument."  And  no 
teacher  since,  in  the  philosophic  schools,  or  in  the 
moral  and  religious  schools,  has  ever  presumed  to  ap- 
proach such  a  thought  as  this.  It  is  unique.  It  stands 
absolutely  alone  among  the  utterances  of  sane  men. 
In  fantasies  and  insanities  there  is  sometimes  such 
an  exorbitant  element  of  self-esteem,  that  men  think 
themselves  to  be  Divine ;  but  that  is  a  morbid  phe- 
nomenon which  no  man,  as  an  acknowledged  leader 
among  men,  sane  in  body  and  sane  in  mind,  ever  in- 
troduced into  his  teaching.  This  personal  element, 
this  claim  by  a  teacher  that  his  teaching  took  hold  of 
men  for  good  by  reason  of  their  personal  adherence 
to  him,  was  never  put  forth  previous  to  the  time  of 
Christ. 

It  w^ould  sound  very  strange  to  you  if  I  were  to  say, 
"  Now,  such  of  you  as  love  me  will  understand  what  I 


THE  MANIFESTATION  OF  GOD  THROUGH  CHRIST.  145 


have  said " ;  and  yet  that  was  the  teaching  of  the 
Saviour  all  through  his  life.  I  am  the  Light "  ;  "I  am 
the  Bread  that  came  down  from  heaven  "  ;  "  Believe  in 
me,"  were  his  injunctions.  His  sovereignty  was  al- 
ways calm  and  serene  ;  and  as  the  center  of  his  teaching, 
above  everything  else,  was  this  command :  "  Believe 
in  me."  He  stood  for  'everything.  It  was  out  of  be- 
lief in  him,  or,  better,  out  of  personal  relation  to  the 
Lord  Jesus  Christ,  that  were  to  grow  all  the  phenom- 
ena he  taught  and  preached,  and  w^hich  men  needed. 

If  you  find,  on  searching  the  New  Testament,  that 
this  is  the  truth  in  Christ  Jesus,  it  is  very  plain  that 
whatever  method  you  may  employ  in  preaching  Christ, 
God's  anointed,  that  element  must  determine  the  col- 
lateral modes  ;  and  the  direction  and  general  tendency 
of  your  teaching  must  be  to  bring  men  into  a  personal 
recognition  of  Christ,  and  into  an  actual,  positive  soul- 
relation  to  him.  You  have  preached  superficially  if 
you  have  given  knowledge  merely ;  you  have  preached 
thoroughly  and  truly  only  when  you  have  given  life 
in  him.  That  is  the  test,  or  should  be,  of  pastoral 
orthodoxy,  —  one's  capacity,  one's  aptitude  to  bring  the 
souls  who  are  committed  to  his  charge  into  personal 
love-relationship  to  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ. 

This,  then,  is  the  beginning,  the  foundation,  the  sub- 
structure, of  every  true  gospel  ministry. 

To  preach  Christ,  however,  is  something  more  than 
laboring  with  the  souls  of  men,  though  that  will  be  a 
part  of  it.  There  must  be  presented  a  conception  of 
Christ.  There  must  be  enkindled  in  men's  minds 
an  idea  of  personality ;  and  in  some  way  it  must  be 
brought  near  to  them. 

VOL,  III.  7  J 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


CHRIST  TO  BE  PRESENTED  HISTORICALLY. 

Now,  in  doing  this,  we  are  to  bring  home  to  men  the 
biography,  the  life,  —  the  historical  life,  —  of  Christ. 
For,  although  the  spiritual  juncture  of  the  Divine  na- 
ture and  the  human  is  the  end  of  your  ministry,  one  of 
the  educating  ways  of  incukating  that  is  by  a  more  per- 
fect representation  to  your  people  of  Christ  as  he  existed 
on  earth.  And  in  this  regard  it  seems  to  me  that  the 
geographical  and  the  archaeological  elements,  the  chron- 
ological arrganement  of  events,  the  whole  psychological 
delineation  of  the  period  in  which  Christ  lived,  may 
very  fitly  enter  into  the  preacher's  plan  much  more 
largely  than  in  the  olden  times. 

I  think  that  men  discuss  disproportionately  the  doc- 
trines of  divinity,  and  the  historical  elements  of  Christ's 
life  not  enough.  I  speak  from  reminiscences  of  my 
own  childhood.  In  modern  days  the  study  of  the  char- 
acter of  Christ  is  becoming  far  more  general  and  search- 
ing than  it  used  to  be.  Within  the  past  fifty  years 
there  have  been  some  hundred  biographies  written  of 
the  Lord  J esus  Christ,  showing  the  drift  of  men's  minds 
on  this  subject ;  and  no  ministry  can  hereafter  be  a 
fruitful  and  instructive  one,  according  to  the  wants  of 
the  times,  that  neglects  this  great  field  of  investigation. 

RELATIVE  IMPORTANCE  OF  CHRONOLOGICAL  ACCURACY. 

There  will  be  difficulties  in  this  work.  There  are  so 
many  questions  connected  with  the  matter  of  incarna- 
tion, —  of  the  Divine  nature  brought  into  human  con- 
ditions ;  there  are  so  many  other  points  of  controversy 
in  the  New  Testament,  particularly  in  the  structure  of 


THiE  MANIFESTATION  OF  GOD  THROUGH  CHRIST.  147 


the  Gospels  ;  there  is  so  much  in  this  undertaking  that 
refines,  or  perplexes,  or  does  both,  that  it  is  not  an  easy 
matter  to  investigate. 

For  example,  whichever  Gospel  you  take  to  make  out 
the  mere  order  of  events,  you  convict  the  other  Gospels 
of  irregularity.  There  is  no  harmony  between  them, 
and  no  possibility  of  making  them  harmonize.  Their 
discrepancies  are  the  despair  of  all  harmonists,  if  I  may 
so  call  them. 

Elicott  uses  some  such  illustration  as  this  :  if  you 
take  the  order  of  events,  one,  two,  three,  four,  five,  six, 
seven,  eight,  nine,  ten,  in  Luke,  and  then  take  those 
same  events  in  Matthew,  they  will  appear  there  as  one, 
five,  three,  seven,  four,  two,  eight,  six,  ten,  nine,  —  and 
so  of  the  other  Evangelists.  The  order  of  time  cannot 
be  established  through  them. 

These,  however,  are  superficial  matters.  Their  con- 
nection is  lost.  All  the  circumstances  need  not  be 
similarly  stated  in  respect  to  time.  Conceive,  for  in- 
stance, of  eight  or  ten,  or,  to  make  the  numbers  alike, 
four  old  men  who  were  acquainted  with  New  Haven 
fifty  or  a  hundred  years  ago,  and  imagine  their  giving 
their  remembrances  of  President  Dwight.  One  story 
calls  out  another.  One  man  relates  some  circumstance, 
and  that  reminds  another  man  of  some  other  reminis- 
cence. They  go  on  giving  anecdote  after  anecdote,  and 
discourse  after  discourse ;  and  the  order  in  which  they 
are  given  is  the  order  of  association,  and  not  the  order 
of  time.  Their  statements  are  not  chronologically  ar- 
ranged. Now,  the  four  Gospels  are  a  collection  of 
memorabilia.  The  various  incidents  are  put  down, 
sometimes  in  the  order  of  time,  and  sometimes  not. 


148 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


Sometimes  they  are  gathered  into  groups  by  their 
apparent  connection  with  each  other. 

So  the  want  of  a  chronological  arrangement  of  the 
facts  renders  your  study  of  the  life  of  Christ  from  the 
text  somewhat  difficult ;  but  it  does  not  take  away 
from  its  profitableness.  Nor  would  the  mere  possession 
of  such  an  arrangement  of  itself  make  your  preaching- 
efficacious.  You  might  make  a  complete  biographical 
statement  of  the  life  of  Christ  in  time,  and  in  his  rela- 
tion to  history  and  archaeology  at  large  ;  you  might,  in 
a  course  of  lectures  on  the  philosophy  prevalent  in 
Palestine  at  the  time  of  his  advent,  describe  the  then 
state  of  the  schools,  and  give  the  whole  history  of  the 
conception  of  Christ,  of  his  birth,  of  his  childhood,  of 
his  development  into  manhood,  and  of  his  entrance  into 
the  ministry,  following  him,  fact  by  fact,  all  through 
his  life,  and  illustrating  it  at  every  step,  and  yet  never 
preach  Christ  so  that  your  people  would  come  into  near 
relations  to  him.  You  might  delineate  Christ  and  his 
career  as  you  would  Caesar  and  his  campaigns,  making 
him  a  man  and  a  marvel,  without  enkindling  any  feel- 
ing of  personal  relationship  to  him  in  the  minds  of 
men,  without  stirring  up  in  them  any  enthusiasm  re- 
specting him,  and  without  awaking  in  their  souls  any 
sense  of  spiritual  want  and  supply. 

So,  then,  while  to  preach  Christ  thus  is  a  very  im- 
portant part  of  your  work,  it  may  be  said,  as  a  general 
thing,  to  be  only  a  preliminary,  preparatory  part  of  it. 

THE  DOCTRINE  OF  CHRIST'S  DIVINITY. 

Next,  it  may  be  thought  that  Christ  is  preached  to 
men  when  his  divinity  is  set  forth  to  them,  and  when 


THE  MANIFESTATION  OF  GOD  THROUGH  CHRIST.  149 

the  claims  of  that  divinity  are  urged  among  them.  Let 
me  not  be  understood  as  undervaluing  the  textual  bat- 
tle, when  I  say  the  text  is  the  weakest  of  all  the  elements 
in  the  proof  of  the  divinity  of  Christ ;  although  there 
have  been  times  when  that  form  of  proof  predominated 
over  almost  every  other.  In  my  judgment,  the  pre- 
ponderance of  the  evidence  of  the  text  is  unquestion- 
ably very  largely  in  favor  of  the  divinity  of  Christ. 
But  to  me  the  mere  textual  affirmations  of  it  —  what 
may  be  called  the  exterior  proofs  which  go  to  sub- 
stantiate it  —  amount  to  comparatively  very  little, 
simply  because  the  other  forms  of  evidence  by  which  it 
is  proved  are  overwhelming,  so  that  I  do  not  need  these. 
But  I  am  considering  it  in  its  abstract  relation  to  the 
wants  of  the  congregations  in  which  you  will  minister. 
There  are  very  many  persons  to  whom  the  whole  in- 
ward meaning  of  the  washing  of  the  disciples'  feet 
(which  is  one  of  the  proofs,  to  my  mind,  of  Christ's 
divinity)  will  amount  to  nothing ;  whereas  the  affirma- 
tion that,  "  being  in  the  form  of  God,  he  thought  it  not 
robbery  to  be  equal  to  God,"  would  amount  to  a  great 
deal.  And  the  wants  of  such  natures,  even  if  they  are 
not  the  deepest,  if  only  they  are  not  merely  external  or 
superficial,  are  to  be  met. 

Hence,  there  is  a  fair  field  for  textual  argumentation 
on  the  subject  of  Christ's  divinity.  It  goes  but  a  little 
way ;  and  yet  that  little  way  is  important.  If,  how- 
ever, one  rests  the  whole  of  his  teaching  on  that  ground, 
he  comes  almost  infinitely  short  of  the  task  that  is 
committed  to  him.  For  a  Christ  proved  is  not  neces- 
sarily a  Christ  realized ;  a  Christ  in  argument  is  not 
necessarily  a  Christin  one's  moral  consciousness. 


150 


LECTURES  ON  PKE ACHING. 


THE  TRINITY. 

Then,  there  are  other  relations  of  the  divinity  of 
Christ :  namely,  its  relations  to  government,  to  the 
Trinity,  and  to  the  Atonement. 

I  am  a  Trinitarian  ;  not  because  I  understand  the 
Trinity,  but  simply  because,  all  the  Scriptures  being 
taken  into  account,  that  solution  of  the  Divine  exist- 
ence is  more  easy  and  natural  of  comprehension  than 
any  other.  Nor  do  I  find  the  slightest  incongruity  or 
the  slightest  inharmony  of  idea  in  the  teaching  of  it. 
But  the  importance  of  that  doctrine  is  another  matter. 
In  Boston,  during  the  Socinian  defection,  there  was  an 
abnormal  importance  attached  to  it ;  certain  great  move- 
ments happened  to  hinge  and  turn  on  it ;  but  it  ought 
not  to  be  supposed,  because  the  relation  of  Christ  to 
the  Trinity  was  important  then,  or  because  it  is  impor- 
tant in  the  construction  of  a  systematic  scheme  of 
theology  now,  that  it  is  equally  important  in  the  convic- 
tion and  conversion  of  men  by  faith  in  the  Lord  Jesus. 

When  men  come  to  me  with  difficulties  on  the  sub- 
ject of  the  divinity  of  Christ,  and  of  his  coequality 
with  the  Father,  —  saying,  "  How  is  it  possible  that  he 
should  be  God,  with  such  limitations  and  such  weak- 
nesses and  such  circumscriptions  ?  How  can  you  con- 
ceive of  Three  in  One  ? "  —  if  I  should  reply  philosophi- 
cally, I  should  say  that  the  analogy  of  nature  led  to 
a  presumption  of  a  Trinity  ;  or  that,  at  any  rate,  it  took 
away  all  the  presumptions  against  it. 

If  you  will  allow  a  moment's  digression,  looking  at 
it  in  the  light  of  modern  discoveries  we  find  that  life, 
organized  in  its  simplest  possible  forms,  develops  into 


THE  MANIFESTATION  OF  GOD  THROUGH  CHRIST.  151 

complexities  ;  and  that  these  complexities  themselves 
separate  into  groups ;  until  we  come  up  to  man,  where 
we  find  a  multiplication  of  faculties,  families  of  facul- 
ties, in  the  human  soul,  —  first  those  faculties  which 
relate  to  the  physical  organization,  then  those  faculties 
which  relate  to  man  in  his  social  connections,  and  then 
those  faculties  which  relate  to  the  invisible  Spirit  and 
the  moral  world. 

Now,  the  next  step  would  be  in  the  line,  not  merely 
of  the  multiplication  of  faculties,  or  of  groups  of  facul- 
ties, but  of  the  multiplication  of  personalities.  And  if 
we  were  to  be  carried  one  step  further  in  the  line  of 
natural  analogical  development,  it  would  not  tax  men 
severely  on  that  side  to  believe  in  the  tri-personality  of 
the  one  God,  —  although,  judged  upon  the  plane  of  hu- 
man experience,  it  is  unintelligible.  At  all  events,  I 
can  say  that,  to  my  mind,  there  is  less  proof  against  it 
than  there  is  for  it. 

If  it  were  asked,  on  the  other  hand,  How  can  you 
conceive  of  such  limitations  and  weaknesses  as  existed 
in  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ  during  his  earthly  life  ?  How 
can  you  conceive  of  him  as  divine  in  the  relations 
which  he  then  sustained  ?  "  my  reply  would  be  this  : 
that  no  man  is  able  to  say  how  much  is  required  for 
divinity ;  for  it  is  not  quantitative  alone,  —  it  is  quali- 
tative as  well.  We  estimate  one's  nature  by  its  attri- 
butes, and  not  simply  by  its  magnitude.  Who,  then, 
can  tell  how  much  it  takes  to  make  divinity  ?  Who 
has  w^eighed  God  ?  Who  has  numbered  his  qualities  ? 
Who  has  any  such  knowledge  as  to  say  that  the  de- 
velopment of  mind-power  and  soul-power  thus  far  con- 
stitutes one  an  angel,  and  that  their  development  thus 


152 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


far  constitutes  one  a  Deity  ?  Who  can  tell  where  the 
finite  touches  the  infinite  ?  No  man  has  the  instru- 
ments by  which  he  can  make  these  measurements.  All 
that  men  can  do  is  to  say  that  one  is  divine  in  quality, 
and  by  his  relations  to  the  human  want  and  the  human 
soul. 

In  regard  to  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  constructive  theo- 
logians attempt  to  develop,  in  the  theory  of  the  Trinity, 
exactly  what  is  his  position,  and  what  are  the  relations 
which  he  sustains  to  the  Father  and  the  Holy  Ghost ; 
but  I  have  been  accustomed  to  say  to  men,  "  Jesus 
Christ  is  one  who  stands  over  against  every  want  in 
the  human  soul,  and  if  he  is  such  a  one  that  you  may 
love  him  with  all  your  strength,  if  you  may  reverence 
him  with  all  your  power,  if  you  may  lean  on  him  with 
the  utmost  confidence  that  belongs  to  the  human  soul, 
—  you  may  trust  in  him  for  time  and  for  eternity  ;  and 
you  could  not  do  more  toward  God  than  that.  And  the 
upward  yearning,  the  moral  aspiration  which  you  feel, 
is  the  evidence  of  Christ  in  you.  You  trust  him  as 
divine  when  you  give  to  him  all  that  you  can  give. 

Whatever  lies  beyond  that  may  be  a  fit  sphere  for 
discussion  and  for  argumentation  with  philosophical 
men,  and  with  theologians  ;  yet,  so  far  as  concerns  your 
work,  which  lies  in  the  actual  field  of  the  ministry, 
it  seems  to  me  that  this  practical  experience  of  the 
divinity  of  the  Saviour  will  be  more  apt  to  bring 
men  into  vital  relations  of  faith  with  him,  than  the 
mere  philosophical  and  defined  relationships  of  Christ 
to  God. 

I  have,  in  my  ministry,  been  surrounded  by  multi- 
tudes of  persons  who  were  reared  in  the  Unitarian 


THE  MANIFESTATION  OF  GOD  THROUGH  CHRIST.  153 

faith,  whom  I  have  found  to  be  persons  of  moral  worth, 
of  honesty,  of  conscientiousness  ;  and  I  have  pursued 
almost  invariably  the  following  course,  in  attempting 
to  deal  with  them  on  this  subject :  I  have  attempted  to 
awaken  in  their  souls  a  strong  moral  need.  I  have 
attempted  to  ply  the  truth  so  as  to  awaken  in  them 
growth,  yearning,  aspiration.  And  then,  when  they 
were  aroused,  and  their  desire  was  strong,  I  have  said 
to  them,  "  There  is  a  view  of  God  in  Christ  Jesus  which 
will  adapt  itself  exactly  to  your  want " ;  and  I  have  pre- 
sented Christ  to  them,  as  he  stands  related  to  the  soul 
as  the  best  argument,  and  as  the  one  which  leads  to  the 
most  logical  conclusion  to  which  they  can  come.  And, 
one  by  one,  under  that  mode  of  treatment,  in  which  the 
controversial  way  is  laid  aside,  and  the  case  has  been 
made,  as  it  were,  matter  of  medical  practice,  opening 
men's  necessities  to  them,  stimulating  their  desire,  mak- 
ing their  hunger  more  intense  and  more  imperative,  and 
then  presenting  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ  in  relations  of 
love,  —  they  have  accepted  him  without  question,  leav- 
ing until  afterward  the  argument  of  moral  consciousness , 
which  is  the  transcendent  argument,  to  which  all  others 
are  subordinate. 

When  one  can  say,  "  I  know  that  my  Redeemer  liv- 
eth,"  out  of  a  consciousness  of  experience  running 
through  the  range  of  his  life,  he  has  no  need  of  further 
argument.  He  has  an  argument  that  is  above  every 
other.  And  ^o  lead  men  on,  step  by  step,  without  con- 
troversy, to  develop  their  moral  life,  and  to  make  Christ 
necessary  food  to  them,  is  the  way  in  which  thousands 
and  thousands  of  men  may  be  brought  to  a  sweet  rela- 
tionship of  a  faith  in  Christ. 
7* 


154 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


THE  ATONEMENT. 

In  the  relation  of  the  Saviour  to  the  Atonement,  I 
have  had  this  experience  :  that  thousands  of  men  have 
been  perplexed  with  what  I  may  call  its  philosophical 
theory.  I  have  been  accustomed  to  teach  men  in  regard 
to  this  matter,  that  first  of  all  Christ  was  to  be  accepted 
as  a  living  fact ;  that,  not  denying  the  theory  of  possi- 
bility as  to  how  he  came  to  be  the  Saviour  of  the  world, 
which  is  not  without  its  importance,  nevertheless,  to 
know  that  Christ  is  the  Saviour  of  the  world,  made  so 
by  Divine  preparation,  and  brought  hither  to  save  men 
from  their  sins,  is  more  important  than  to  know  just  Jiow 
it  was  adjusted  through  Divine  processes  and  arrange- 
ments of  government.  For,  when  he  presented  himself, 
the  command  was  not,  "  Believe  in  me  on  account  of 
such  and  such  logical  arguments  of  fitness  and  propriety 
and  governmental  adjustments,"  but,  Believe  in  me  on 
account  of  what  I  am."  And  he  that  believes  in  the 
Lord  Jesus  Christ,  accepting  him,  does  not  necessarily 
need  to  know  how  he  came  to  be  so  and  so.  Must  we 
not  believe  in  God  until  we  know  how  he  came  into 
existence  and  how  self-existence  is  possible  ?  Must  we 
not  believe  a  fact  until  we  know  the  whole  history  of 
that  fact  ?  Must  we  not  read  a  letter  until  we  know 
how  the  paper  was  manufactured,  how  the  ink  was 
made,  and  all  the  circumstances  under  which  it  was 
indited  ?  It  may  be  interesting  to  know*  these  things  ; 
but,  after  all,  the  news  which  the  letter  contains  is  the 
main  thing. 

If  I  am  sick,  and  a  prescription  is  made  for  me  by 
one  who  is  competent  to  make  it,  I  do  not  take  it 


THE  MANIFESTATION  OF  GOD  THROUGH  CHRIST.  155 

because  1  understand  the  theory  of  my  sickness,  nor 
because  I  know  the  ingredients  of  the  mixture  which 
the  physician  has  prescribed  for  me,  nor  because  I  know 
what  is  in  his  mind :  I  take  it  by  faith  in  him ;  and 
its  action  is  the  proof  of  its  excellence. 

Now,  you  can  present  Jesus  Christ  to  men  (I  am 
speaking  of  those  who  are  difficult  to  reach)  so  as 
neither  to  perplex  them  in  regard  to  his  relations  to 
the  Godhead,  nor  to  entangle  them  in  discussions  of 
the  theory  and  philosophy  of  the  Divine  atoning  work. 

If  you  present  the  mere  fact  that  Christ  died  to  save 
sinners,  the  heart  will  often  say,  as  a  refrain,  "  Of  whom 
I  am  the  chief ! "  If  you  say  that  Christ,  by  his  own 
nature,  by  his  declared  love,  by  his  offices  ,as  Eedeemer 
of  the  world,  will  receive  all  souls  that  come  to  him, 
and  purify  them,  and  save  them,  that  is  enough  for 
salvation.  It  may  not  be  enough  for  you  in  making 
out  your  system  of  philosophy  or  of  theology ;  but  it 
is  enough  for  your  preaching,  —  and  you  must  con- 
stantly bear  in  mind  that  in  these  lectures  I  am  speak- 
ing of  all  these  theological  elements,  not  as  to  their 
structural  value,  but  merely  as  to  their  functional  use 
in  the  practical  work  of  preaching.  I  apprehend  that 
more  men  have  been  converted  by  the  simple  presen- 
tation of  Christ  as  a  Person  than  by  the  presentation 
of  the  Atonement  as  a  doctrine.  Without  undervalu- 
ing the  doctrine  or  philosophy  of  the  Atonement  as  it 
is  held  by  one  school  or  by  many,  I  say  that  if  you 
preach  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  revealed  in  the  Word  of 
God  as  One  who  came  into  the  world  to  pity,  to  spare, 
to  uphold,  and  to  save  men,  you  will  be  more  appre- 
hensible, and  you  will  come  nearer  and  more  quickly 


156 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


to  men's  consciousness,  than  if  you  go  a  long  way 
around  and  undertake  to  explain  the  problems  of  the 
moral  government  of  God  as'  it  is  administered  in  the 
universe,  and  attempt  to  show  how  it  is  that  God  is 
able  to  do  this,  that,  or  the  other  thing,  —  how,  for  in- 
stance, he  can  be  just  and  yet  the  justifier  of  those  who 
believe. 

It  is  the  living,  personal  Christ,  therefore,  who  ought 
to  be  the  end  and  object  of  your  ministry :  not  to  the 
neglect  of  those  other  questions,  but  because  the  great 
mass  of  men  are  on  a  plane  where  they  will  be  more 
susceptible  to  the  fact  than  to  any  reasoning  upon  the 
fact. 

THE  NEW  JERUSALEM  BETTER  THAN  THE  OLD. 

As  I  have  already  intimated,  in  preaching  Christ  to 
men,  while  you  bring  up  the  historic  Christ  as  the 
basis  of  all  knowledge,  it  becomes  absolutely  necessary 
that  you  should  not  stand  upon  the  Christ  of  eighteen 
hundred  years  ago.  You  must  say,  as  Paul  did,  "  It  is 
Christ  that  died,  yea,  rather,  that  is  risen  again."  If 
you  could  trace  the  thoughts  of  men,  I  think  you 
would  see  that  much  obscurity  and  hinderance  in  the 
development  of  their  spiritual  life  has  arisen  from  the 
fact  that  they  have  attempted  to  go  back  to  Jerusalem 
for  their  Christ.  I  know  I  did  in  many  periods  of  my 
life.  I  tried  to  submit  to  Christ ;  and  I  imagined  him 
as  walking  into  and  out  of  Jerusalem.  In  imagination 
I  sat  with  him  under  the  olive-tree,  and  looked  up 
into  his  august  face.  In  imagination  I  walked  with 
him  in  Bethany.  In  imagination  I  stood  by  his  side 
as  he  looked  upon  Jerusalem,  and  tried  to  come  to  a 


THE  MANIFESTATION  OF  GOD  THROUGH  CHRIST.  157 

sense  of  the  infinite  pity  which  he  felt.  Thus  I  went 
step  by  step  with  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ  in  imagination, 
I  was  in  bondage  to  the  history  of  Christ ;  and  it  was 
not  until  I  had  broken  loose  from  that  bondage,  and 
was  enabled,  by  the  Spirit  of  God  quickening  the  un- 
derstanding and  the  heart,  to  look  up  to  a  Christ 
living,  that  my  yearning  was  satisfied.  A  Christ  a 
thousand  times  more  glorious  than  Jerusalem  ever 
saw ;  a  Christ  a  thousand  times  freer,  and  fuller  of  the 
manifestation  of  love,  than  any  historical  Christ;  a 
Christ  larger  in  every  way  than  the  Christ  of  the  past ; 
a  Christ  enwrapping  every  soul  as  the  whole  atmos- 
phere of  a  continent  broods  over  each  particular 
flower ;  a  Christ  conceived  of  as  living  near,  as  over- 
hanging, as  thinking  of  each  one,  and  as  working  for 
him,  —  such  a  Christ  had  power  with  me. 

If  you  train  your  people  to  go  back  to  old  J erusalem 
it  will  be  a  weary  pilgrimage.  There  is  benefit  in  that ; 
but  the  New  Jerusalem  is  better.  The  ocean  of  the  air 
is  easier  traversed  by  the  thought  than  the  sea  is  by 
the  body.  Not  the  Christ  of  antiquity,  but  the  "  Christ 
that  died,"  and  is  risen  again,  who  is  ever  at  the 
right  hand  of  God,  who  also  maketh  intercession 
for  us,"  —  that  is  the  best  Christ  to  represent  to  your 
people  as  manifesting  God,  and  the  one  that  will  be 
most  potential  with  them. 

CHRIST,  THE  REVEALER  OF  GOtfS  PERSONAL  DISPOSITION. 

Let  me  say,  further,  that  when  our  Saviour  came 
into  the  world  a  knowledge  of  God  prevailed ;  but  it 
was  most  largely  a  knowledge  of  God  as  a  Power,  as  a 
Governor.    The  thought  of  one  God,  existing  in  great 


158 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHIN6. 


power,  in  supreme  wisdom,  and  in  general  goodness, 
had  been  established  in  the  Jewish  consciousness,  if  I 
may  so  say ,  but  the  private  disposition  of  God  had  not 
kept  pace  with  that  thought  in  the  minds  of  the  Jews. 
They  conceived  of  God  as  a  Governor. 

Now,  you  may  know  tlie  governor  perfectly,  and 
not  know  the  man.  Governorship  is  artificial.  Gov- 
ernor is  an  abstract  term  which,  when  you  look  into  it, 
you  find  to  mean  simply  a  functionary,  —  one  who  does, 
performs,  and  not  one  who  is.  The  Jews  had  come  to 
a  full  conception  of  God  as  the  Governor  of  the  uni- 
verse, —  as  the  Lord  Jehovah.  It  seems  to  me  that 
Christ  came  into  the  world  to  make  known  to  men 
God  in  his  innermost  and  personal  disposition  ;  and 
that  "  the  power  of  God  and  the  wisdom  of  God  "  in 
Jesus  Christ  is  that  manifestation  which  needs  to  be 
made  of  the  inner  thought  and  private  disposition  of 
the  Creator. 

CHRIST,  THE  DELIVERER. 

If  you  look  further  into  the  development  of  Christ 
in  time,  you  will  find  that  he  was  not  so  much  one 
that  revealed  sin  ;  for  a  consciousness  of  sinfulness  had 
become  developed  in  the  Hebrews,  in  the  old  Jews  ;  a 
moral  sense  had  been  formed  in  them,  and  it  had  pro- 
digious power.  The  great  fault  was,  that  it  expended 
itself  on  artificial  observances,  and  not  on  things  nat- 
ural. The  best-minded  Jews  in  the  time  of  the  Saviour 
were  a  thousand  times  more  conscientious  than  we 
are ;  but  they  frittered  away  their  conscience.  They 
spent  it  on  ten  thousand  little  conventional  ceremo- 
nies.   Eight  or  wrong,  with  them,  Was  compliance  or 


THE  MANIFESTATION  OF  GOD  THROUGH  CHRIST.  159 

noncompliance  with  certain  artificial  arrangements. 
Every  step  of  their  life  was  ritualized  and  symbolized. 
They  could  not  walk,  they  could  not  eat,  they  could 
not  look  up  or  down,  they  could  not  turn  right  or  left, 
without  coming  in  contact  with  something  that  con- 
veyed to  them  an  idea  of  right  or  wrong.  Carried  to 
the  extent  that  it  was  among  the  Essenes,  it  almost 
separated  men  from  life  ;  and  they  were  tormented  by 
it.  They  were  under  a  bondage  of  conscience  which 
was  strong,  multifarious,  and  minute,  and  which  took 
away  all  real  liberty,  and  all  momentum  of  the  moral 
nature. 

Christ  came  not  to  reveal  that  men  were  sinful,  but 
to  release  them  from  sinfulness.  He  was  a, Saviour  and 
Deliverer.  He  reproached  men  that  they  were  binding 
burdens  on  their  fellow-men,  making  it  harder  and 
harder  for  them  to  use  their  functions  naturally,  and 
to  live  with  spontaneity,  and  under  the  inspiration 
of  great  motives  that,  once  in  operation,  took  care  of 
themselves,  through  Divine  guidance.  He  came  to 
untie  what  had  been  bound.  He  came  to  unravel  what 
was  knit.  He  came  to  set  man  on  another  plane.  He 
came  to  teach  men  that  not  what  they  ate  or  drank, 
that  not  what  went  into  the  mouth,  but  that  which 
went  out,  defiled  them.  He  came  to  say  to  them, 
"You  may  eat  consecrated  bread  or  unconsecrated 
bread,  so  that  your  heart  is  right."  He  came  to  show 
them  that  right  and  wrong  had  reference  to  the  internal 
state  of  men,  to  the  qualities  of  their  disposition  ;  and 
that  it  was  the  moral  sentiments  of  the  soul  that  de- 
termined rectitude  and  the  opposite,  and  not  any  mere 
external  acts.    He  went  back  of  the  artificial,  and  lib- 


160 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHII^G. 


erated  his  countrymen  from  a  bondage  which  was 
destroying  their  moral  sense,  and  put  them  on  larger 
ground,  —  the  ground,  namely,  that  right  or  wrong  was 
to  be  determined  by  the  interior  faculties  of  every  man. 
And  he  put  himself  into  such  a  relation  to  these  inte- 
rior faculties,  that  a  man  who  loves  him  with  all  his 
heart  will  have  one  guiding  master-impulse  for  right, 
and  that  all  the  other  dispositions  will  take  their  rela- 
tive places  in  gradation  under  it,  and  will  act  according 
to  its  direction. 

As  when  the  great  wheel  in  a  factory  turns  every 
other  wheel  spins  and  buzzes,  so  he  who,  through  the 
inner  man,  puts  himself  in  the  relations  of  love  to  tlie 
Lord  Jesus  Christ,  will  have  that  central  and  controlling 
element  turning  every  other  faculty  right,  or  making  its 
action  right. 

Christ  did  not  come,  then,  so  much  to  convict  men 
of  their  sins,  as  to  show  them  how  they  might  be  re- 
leased from  sinfulness  through  faith  in  him,  and  through 
loving  obedience  to  him. 

'  When,  therefore,  in  preaching  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ 
to  men,  you  find  that  they  are  in  perplexity  as  to  the 
exterior  life,  as  to  the  outward  and  governmental  rela- 
tions of  the  Saviour,  there  is  a  way  of  escape  from 
human  consciousness  of  sin,  and  from  human  want  of 
support  and  helpfulness  to  the  Divine  Deliverer. 

CHRIST  TO  ACT  THROUGH  THE  PREACHER'S  PERSON- 
ALITY. 

I  have  never,  in  all  my  ministry,  had,  in  my  own 
experience,  any  such  realization  of  the  Saviour,  or  any 
such  tenderness  of  love  toward  him,  as  that  which  I 


THE  MANIFESTATION  OF  GOD  THROUGH  CHRIST.  161 

have  enjoyed  in  attempting  to  release  men  from  preju- 
dice and  bondage  in  the  natural  life.  The  clearest 
views  of  the  Saviour  that  I  have  ever  derived  have 
been,  not  from  argument  and  theory,  which  were  dark, 
and  which  I  could  not  understand,  but  from  the  living 
consciousness  of  men. 

When,  in  times  of  religious  inquiry,  I  have  had  men 
coming  to  me,  I  have  studied  their  character ;  I  have 
studied  their  wants ;  I  have  studied  their  surround- 
ings ;  I  have  felt  such  an  anxiety  about  them  that  I 
have  gone  again  and  again  to  see  them  ;  I  have  looked 
into  their  nature,  and  attempted  to  set  the  strong  parts 
over  against  the  weak  parts,  to  help  and  succor  them ; 
and  I  have  asked  from  day  to  day  with- growing  in- 
terest about  their  condition,  until  at  last  there  has 
been  light  dawning  on  their  souls.  And  I  have  felt 
myself  so  strong  and  joyful  in  their  release,  that  there 
has  flashed  out  in  my  own  mind  the  thought :  "  Why, 
that  is  Christ  in  you.  You  are  brooding  these  men. 
You  are  thinking  of  them.  You  are  looking  into  all 
their  interior  economy.  You  are  making  their  life 
your  own.  You  are  pouring  your  own  life  into  them. 
You  are  giving  them  the  stimulus  of  hope.  You  are 
ministering  to  them  the  power  of  your  courage.  You 
are  nursing  and  caring  for  them.  And  if  you,  being 
evil,  know  how  to  do  such  good  things,  how  much 
more  shall  your  Father  who  is  in  heaven  do  them ! " 

Then,  with  that  experience,  born  out  of  such  conduct, 
going  back  to  the  text  of  the  Jfew  Testament,  I  saw  it 
flaming  where  before  it  smouldered ;  and  passages  that 
had  been  dull  as  lead  began  to  put  on  a  radiancy  which 
they  have  never  lost.   Stars  may  go  down,  but  stars  are 

K 


162 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


not  quenched ;  and  texts  may  pass  out  of  the  horizon, 
but  they  come  again,  and  never  go  back  to  their  dark 
estate  if  they  are  illumined  by  such  glorious  passages 
of  heart  experience. 

Well,  following  up  that  analogy,  I  have  sought  again 
and  again  to  use  it.  Persons  would  come  to  me  in  the 
utmost  anxiety  of  mind  :  "  Mr.  Beecher,  I  belong  to  a 
different  parish,  and  you  may  think  it  strange  that  I 
do  not  go  to  my  own  minister ;  but  someliow,  though 
he  is  an  excellent  man,  I  am  not  in  sympathy  with 
him ;  I  do  not  feel  free  in  his  presence  ;  but  I  have 
always  felt  that  you  had  such  sympathy  with  people 
that  I  could  come  and  tell  you  all  my  difficulties." 
I  let  them  go  on,  and  kept  them  on  that  strain,  till  they 
poured  out  their  whole  heart  in  confession  ;  and  then 
I  turned  on  them,  and  said :  You  have  confidence  in 
me  ;  you  believe  that  I  want  to  help  you,  and  I  do  ;  I 
give  you  my  hand  on  it ;  I  would  not  spare  myself ;  I 
would  help  you  at  all  hazards  ;  but  w^hat  am  I  ?  There 
stands  right  back  of  me  the  Lord  Jesus  Cln^ist,  and  the 
feeling  of  sympathy  w^hich  you  see  in  me  is  but  a 
spark  which  sprang  out  of  that  Orb  ;  why  do  you  not 
go  to  the  Saviour  with  the  same  living  faith  which  you 
repose  in  me,  and  say,  '  I  come  to  tliee  for  help ! ' " 
Thus,  out  of  that  personal  feeling,  I  kindle  in  them  a 
sense  of  Christ. 

HUMAN  EXPERIENCE  TO  INTERPRET  THE  NATURE  OF 
CHRIST. 

Carry  it  further.  When  persons  come  to  me,  and  I 
instruct  them,  and  find  that  they  are  careless  and  heed- 
Jess,  and  have  not  followed  my  instructions,  do  I  give 


THE  MANIFESTATIQN  OF  GOD  THROUGH  CHRIST.  163 

them  up  ?  I  may  rebuke  them,  and  point  out  to  them 
their  folly.  I  may  use  stringent  motives  to  excite  them 
to  a  better  way  ;  but  out  of  that  conies  to  me  a  sense 
of  the  patience  and  the  gentleness  of  Christ.  I  had 
almost  said  that  now  my  living  Christ  has  been  formed 
out  of  the  fragments  of  Christ-likeness  that  I  have  seen 
in  men  or  in  women,  or  that  have  been  developed  in 
me.  I  have  taken  these  precious  particles,  as  it  were, 
and  have  framed  them  more  or  less  into  conceptions ; 
and  those  conceptions  have  been  exalted  and  glorified ; 
and  I  have  been  surprised  to  find,  on  going  back  to  the 
Bible  with  these  conceptions,  and  reading  it  again,  how 
full  of  meaning  were  parts  of  it  which  before  did  not 
mean  anything  to  me. 

The  letter  does  kill  or  blind  ;  and  the  spirit  does 
give  life ;  but,  oh  !  how  blessed  the  letter  is  when  the 
soul  is  alive  to  read  it !  How  blessed  the  Word  of  God 
is,  in  its  experimental  parts,  when  it  takes  light,  not 
merely  from  the  Holy  Ghost,  but  from  the  Holy  Ghost 
shining  through  the  living,  personal,  human  conscious- 
ness, bringing  your  deepest  nature  to  the  verification  of 
it,  and  kindling  in  your  mind  a  conception  that  there  is 
such  a  thing  as  life  much  larger  than  anything  that 
you  dream  of  among  men,  —  a  life  of  love,  and  pity, 
and  suffering  for  the  sake  of  another. 

And  when  I  think  how  I  have  seen  fathers  suffer  for 
their  children  (I  know  a  father  who  has  gone  through 
a  living  deatli  for  twenty-five  years,  with  drunken  chil- 
dren, his  substance  wasted,  his  heart  broken,  his  sor- 
rows flowing  like  a  river ;  and  who  suffers  yet,  and 
bears  yet) ;  when  I  see  what  mothers  do  for  their  chil- 
dren, what  anguish  they  endure,  and  with  what  delight 


164 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHmC. 


they  do  loathsome  things,  how  they  begrudge  to  others 
the  doing  of  the  most  revolting  offices  because  they  love 
their  babes  so  much,  how  they  hold  themselves  aloof 
from  the  pleasures  of  society  because  it  is  so  sweet  to 
them  to  serve  nothingness  with  affection ;  when  I  see 
the  wonder  of  mother-love,  devoting  itself  to  the  child 
that  is  helpless  and  useless,  and  that  lives  almost  only  in 
the  prophecy  of  the  mother's  hope  ;  —  when  I  see  these 
manifestations,  I  take  them  up  as  precious  things  from 
heaven,  as  God  incarnated  in  men  who  bear  his  like- 
ness with  them ;  and  out  of  such  materials,  thus  gath- 
ered together,  I  frame  such  a  sense  of  the  real,  ever- 
living  Christ,  that  when  I  go  to  my  people  I  go  to  them 
with  as  much  certainty  as  ever  John  had,  or  as  ever 
came  to  one  of  the  disciples. 

I  know  that  my  Eedeemer  liveth.  I  know  that  the 
conception  which  I  have  of  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ, 
filling  all  space  and  every  realm,  is  not  a  cunningly 
devised  fable,  is  not  a  fiction,  is  not  a  poem,  but  is  a 
mighty  power. 

THE  SPIRIT  OF  CHRIST,  THE  CENTRAL  SOURCE  OF  POWER. 

This  leads  me  to  the  last  thing  that  I  shall  say  this 
afternoon,  which  is  this  :  I  do  not  believe  that  any  of 
you  are  ever  going  to  preach  Christ  until  you  have 
Christ  formed  in  you.  It  is  this  experimental  knowl- 
edge of  the  Saviour  wrought  into  your  ministration, 
and  brought  to  bear  upon  men  in  a  living  form,  that  is 
needed. 

Is  not  that  the  theory  of  the  Christian  ministry? 
Do  you  not  stand  for  Christ,  as  Christ  ?  It  is,  indeed, 
a  thing  to  make  a  man  tremble.    If  men  see  that  you 


THE  MANIFESTATION  OF  GOD  THROUGH  CHRIST.  165 


are  proud ;  that  when  you  are  reviled  you  revile  again ; 
that  you  are  haughty  and  domineering ;  that  you  lord 
it  over  men ;  that  you  are  willing  to  have  everybody 
honor  and  serve  you ;  that  you  are  very  good-natured 
and  happy  in  your  ministerial  position  when  the  elders 
all  bow  to  you,  and  the  deacons  all  look  up  to  you,  and 
your  people  all  do  just  what  you  want  them  to  ;  that  in 
all  things  yon  act  in  accordance  with  the  great  laws 
of  human  nature,  —  if  men  see  these  things,  you  may 
preach  Christ  till  you  are  hoarse  and  you  will  not  make 
them  believe  in  him.  To  talk  about  his  being  divine, 
and  to  talk  about  the  atonement,  is  all  very  well ;  but 
it  is  only  when  Christ  is  in  you,  —  in  your  meekness,  in 
your  long-suffering,  in  your  gentleness,  ii;L  your  return- 
ing good  for  evil,  in  your  praying  for  those  who  de- 
spitefuUy  use  you  and  persecute  you ;  it  is  only  when 
Christ  has  been  so  formed  that  men  see  him  in  you, 
even  though  it  be  only  as  through  a  glass,  darkly,  but  a 
living,  pulsating  life,  so  that  they  can  take  your  example 
and  lift  it,  by  the  power  of  imagination,  into  a  higher 
sphere  ;  it  is  only  when,  seeing  your  good  works,  they 
glorify  your  Father  which  is  in  heaven,  —  it  is  only 
then  that  you  preach  Christ  effectually. 

If  I  were  asked,  "  What  is  the  greatest  necessity  of 
the  Christian  ministry  to-day  ? "  I  should  say  that  it 
was  the  power  which  comes  from  Christ-likeness.  And 
in  studying  Christ,  while  the  text  and  the  philosophy 
are  important,  the  spirit  is  a  thousand  times  more  im- 
portant. Your  whole  Christian  ministry  will  derive 
its  chief  consequence  and  power  from  whatever  of 
Christ  is  in  you,  and  in  you  not  by  thought,  but  by 
disposition  and  life, 


166 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


Young  gentlemen,  the  world  is  passing  fast.  It 
seems  but  yesterday  when  I  thought  I  was  a  young 
man :  to-day  I  am  an  old  man.  It  seems  but  yes- 
terday when  I  thought  I  had  endless  time  before 
me  :  my  work  is  almost  done.  You  are  beginning,  and 
life  is  all  before  you,  with  its  taxations,  with  its  an- 
noyances, with  its  cares.  The  most  important  thing 
you  have  before  you  in  life  is  not  that  you  should  have 
an  eminent  place,  or  a  great  name,  or  large  revenues,  or 
even  success,  in  the  ordinary  sense  of  the  term.  The 
chiefest  thing  that  lies  before  you,  which  you  can  con- 
ceive of,  is  that  you  should  ripen  into  the  disposition 
of  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ  in  such  a  way  that  when  you 
come  to  men  it  shall  be  as  if  Christ  came  to  them, 
bringing  his  power,  his  nature,  his  influence,  his  feeling, 
his  life.  You  are  all  running  to  the  Lord,  and  saying, 
"  Lord,  grant  that  I  may  sit  on  thy  right  hand  or  on  thy 
left "  ;  and  Christ  is  saying  to  you,  My  son,  can  you 
drink  of  the  cup  that  I  drink  of  ?  Can  you  be  baptized 
with  the  baptism  that  I  am  baptized  withal  ? "  You 
want  to  be  radiant  ministers,  eloquent  ministers,  minis- 
ters of  great  influence  and  success.  Do  you  want  to 
sit  on  the  Lord's  right  hand  or  on  his  left  ?  Then  give 
him  your  heart,  so  that  in  humility,  in  gentleness,  in 
unfailing  sweetness,  in  patience  under  all  circum- 
stances, you  shall  be  like  him.  In  order  to  be  success- 
ful and  influential  ministers,  are  you  willing  to  bear 
about  with  you  the  dying  of  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  so 
that  his  love  may  be  made  manifest  in  your  heart  ? 
This  it  is  to  preach  Christ,  as  the  wisdom  of  God  and 
the  power  of  God  unto  the  salvation  of  men. 


VII. 


VIEWS  OF  THE  DIVINE  LIFE  IN  HUMAN- 
CONDITIONS. 

March  4,  1874. 

OUNG  gentlemen,  I  do  not  know  as  I  shall 
succeed  at  all,  this  afternoon,  in  what  I 
wish  to  do.  If  I  do  not,  it  will  not  be  the 
first  time  that  a  good  subject  has  been 
spoiled  in  the  handling,  in  my  ministry.  Now,  every 
effort  that  you  make  to  do  something  that  requires  tact 
and  skill  and  the  various  subtle  combinations  of  mind 
which  are  called  forth  in  preaching,  if  it  throws  you 
back  in  discouragement,  and  causes  you  to  feel  that  it 
is  of  no  use,  it  Avill  harm  you  ;  but  it  should  not,  for 
no  man  ever  undertook  a  subject  honestly  and  faith- 
fully, and  failed  in  it,  that  he  was  not  better  prepared 
to  succeed  the  next  time.  Some  of  the  best  sermons 
that  you  will  ever  preach,  probably,  will  be  those  which 
are  made  from  abortive  attempts,  broken  up  and  re- 
modeled afterwards. 

I  wish  to  speak,  this  afternoon,  of  the  aspects  of  a 
divine  life  in  human  conditions. 

Say  to  any  one  class  of  men,  —  poets,  philosophers, 
or  religionists,  —  "  Draw  out,  if  you  please,  your  con- 


168 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


ception  of  the  way  in  which  a  perfect  Being,  a  Deity, 
would  conduct  himself  if  he  were  thrown  down  into 
time,  and  amidst  the  temptations  of  physical  law  and 
the  conditions  of  human  life.  Give  this  ideal  picture." 
I  suspect  that  in  no  single  instance  would  men  unen- 
lightened by  the  actual  facts  of  the  New  Testament 
come  within  speaking  distance  of  the  reality ;  and  yet, 
considered  as  an  abstract  proposition,  this  conception 
is  profoundly  interesting  to  a  student,  it  is  still  more 
interesting  to  a  preacher,  and  it  is  indispensable  to 
those  who  would  practically  avail  themselves  of  the 
mission  of  our  Lord  and  Saviour  Jesus  Christ. 

THE  DIVINE  SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS  IN  JESUS. 

Now,  in  the  beginning,  you  must  notice  that  Jesus, 
as  he  came  to  this  world,  —  born  of  a  woman,  being 
successively  a  babe,  a  young  man,  a  working  man,  a 
toiler  among  the  poor  citizens,  himself  a  citizen,  sub- 
ject to  all  the  experiences  that  belong  to  what  may  be 
called  his  strictly  secular  and  early  life,  —  from  our 
first  knowledge  of  him  as  a  thinker  or  an  actor  mani- 
fested the  divine  consciousness.  That  is  to  say,  it  was 
very  plain  that  he  himself  stood  in  the  conditions  of 
this  life  as  one  who  remembered  a  former  existence,  — 
as  one  who  knew  himself  to  be  higher  than  kings  and 
greater  than  lords ;  yea,  that,  without  the  slightest 
apology,  or  any  sense  of  incongruity,  he  did  not  hesi- 
tate to  take  a  higher  place  than  the  prophets,  than  the 
law,  than  the  altar,  than  the  temple,  than  the  whole 
Jewish  economy;  and  not  only  this,  but  that,  though 
in  time-relations  he  spoke  of  himself  as  subordinate  to 
the  Father,  yet  in  eternal  relations  he  spoke  of  himself 


THE  DIVINE  LIFE  IN  HUIVIAN  CONDITIONS.  169 

as  equal  with  the  Father,  and  as  his  companion.  He 
never,  in  a  single  instance,  showed  a  consciousness  of 
limitation,  or  of  imperfection,  or  of  infirmity,  or  of  sin  ; 
he  never  uttered  a  conviction  which  indicated  that  he 
recognized  anything  less  than  absolute  holiness  in  him- 
self ;  he  always  carried  himself  with  an  easy  and  gentle 
grace,  in  the  consciousness  of  his  perfection,  which  we 
had  almost  said  came  from  life-long  breeding,  but 
which  was  innate,  inborn,  with  him. 

He  teaches  us  to  say,  Our  Father " ;  but  he  never 
said  so :  he  always  said,  "  My  Father."  We  are  all 
born  of  men  ;  and  yet  he  seeks  out  the  phrase,  "  Son 
of  Man,"  as  something  significant  when  applied  to 
himself.  That  phrase  is  not  a  distinctive  title  for  you 
or  for  me,  because  we  are  all  sons  of  men.  There  was 
therefore  an  innate  consciousness,  an  inherent  sense  in 
his  soul,  that  "  Son  of  Man  "  was  a  strange  title  to  call 
him  by,  inasmuch  as  he  was  God's  own  equal ;  and  the 
phrase  has,  under  such  circumstances,  great  power. 

HIS  SOCIAL,  NATIONAL,  AND  PROFESSIONAL  POSITION. 

We  are  prepared,  then,  starting  from  this  conscious- 
ness of  the  Saviour,  to  ask  how  he  carried  himself.  In 
the  first  place  you  must  recollect  that  he  was  not  an 
ordained  minister  at  all.  He  was  a  man  of  the  people  ; 
he  sprang  from  among  them  ;  and  that  was  not  strange, 
as  the  Jews  were  democratic  in  their  spirit  and  insti- 
tutions. Having  sprung  from  among  the  people,  he 
never  left  their  ranks.  He  never  went  through  the  ap- 
pointed education.  He  had  only  the  education  which 
belonged  to  the  peasantry  among  the  Jews.  There  is, 
at  any  rate,  no  evidence  that  he  had  any  other,  however 

VOL.  III.  8 


170 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


much  presumption  there  may  be  as  to  the  probabiUty. 
He  never  joined  himself  to  any  of  the  great  sects  or  di- 
visions within  the  one  Jewish  church,  and  he  was  never 
sent  forth  by  authority.  He  appeared  just  as  the 
prophets  did.  For  the  Jewish  system  was  remarkable 
in  this :  that  while  the  regulation  worship  was  to  the 
last  degree  precise  and  imperative,  any  men  and  any 
women,  in  the  whole  history  of  tlie  Jewish  people,  who 
had  primal  inspiration,  were  at  liberty  to  sing,  to  speak, 
to  teach,  or  to  prophesy.  The  Jew^s  had  the  utmost  re- 
spect, therefore,  for  native  genius  and  power.  Among 
the  Jews,  they  who  undertook  to  administer  stated 
affairs  must  do  it  in  stated  ways  ;  but  those  whom  God 
called  outside  of  these  ways  had  liberty  to  exercise 
their  functions  according  to  their  inspiration.  So 
Christ  never  went  out  of  his  position,  as  one  born 
among  the  people  and  a  private  citizen.  He  spoke 
only  because  he  had  whereof  to  speak,  and  somewhat 
to  say. 

All  his  life  long,  then,  he  appeared  not  as  a  profes- 
sional man.  He  was  not  in  any  proper  sense  of  the 
term  a  priest.  He  represented  nothing,  he  did  not 
stand  for  anybody,  among  his  people.  He  stood  a 
Voice,  a  Light,  a  living  Soul.  His  was  not  a  person- 
ality of  solitariness,  but  a  personality  separated  from 
official  classes  in  order  that  he  might  always  belong  to 
his  kind.  He  was  not  ordained  out  from  among  the 
common  people,  but  he  abided  in  their  midst,  as  it  were 
touching  them,  and  being  near,  therefore,  to  their  per- 
sonal sympathies. 

Then,  he  was  a  man  of  his  own  age,  and  of  his  own 
country.    Although  he  was  divine,  and  therefore  was 


THE  DIVINE  LIFE  IN  HUMAN  CONDITIONS.  171 

absolute  and  universal  in  his  knowledge  of  the  truth, 
in  the  higher  range  of  his  consciousness,  nevertheless, 
not  only  did  he  come  from  among  the  common  people, 
but  he  came  from  the  Hebrews ;  he  was  a  Hebrew  of 
the  Hebrews,  and  he  was  true  to  his  lineage.  He  was 
faithful  in  all  respects  to  the  best  things  which  belonged 
to  the  Jewish  national  life. 

There  is  great  significance,  too,  in  this,  if  you  bear  in 
mind  that  it  was  the  divine  consciousness  striving  to 
keep  close  to  man's  consciousness  ;  that  it  was  the 
divine  heart  held  near  to  the  common  heart,  that  men 
might  receive  light  and  warmth  and  inspiration  from 
God. 

To  a  large  extent  this  was  one  secret  — not  the  only 
one,  but  one  —  why  the  great  J ewish  common  people 
felt  as  they  did  in  regard  to  Christ.  They  were  proud 
of  him  as  the  ideal,  typical  Jew.  He  represented  to 
them  the  best  things.  He  observed  the  Jewish  Sab- 
bath. To  him  the  synagogue  was  not  forbidden 
ground.  He  worshiped  there.  He  conformed  him- 
self to  its  customs.  He  visited  the  temple.  Duriug 
his  active  ministry  he  was  probably  as  regular  in  his 
attendance  at  Jerusalem  as  any  man  in  all  Galilee. 

So  he  observed  the  laws  and  customs  of  his  country, 
and  identified  himself  with  the  people.  He  came  in 
such  a  way  that  they  felt,  "  This  man  is  the  representa- 
tive of  all  of  us  " ;  and  when  they  saw  that  he  had 
miraculous  power,  they  began  to  say,  "  This  is  the  Mes- 
siah ;  he  is  a  Jew  of  great  nature,  great  power,  and 
great  glory ;  and  he  is  to  set  us  free."  And  it  was 
with  disgust  and  reaction  that  they  looked  upon  liim 
afterward,  when  he  would  not  use  that  power  to  make 


172 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


himself,  and  would  not  allow  himself  to  be  made,  king. 
It  was  this  fact  that  caused  defection  from  him,  and 
drove  him  out  of  Galilqe,  to  the  foot  of  the  mountains, 
where  he  w^as  transfigured.  It  was  the  high-tide  of  his 
popularity  ;  but  it  ebbed  among  the  common  people 
when  they  found  that  this  Jew  would  not  lead  the 
Jews  to  victory. 

One  fact,  however,  is  to  be  borne  in  mind  all  the 
time,  namely,  that  the  conscious  divinity  which  was 
in  Christ  allied  itself  to  nationality,  to  manners  and 
customs,  to  usages,  to  laws,  to  services,  to  everything 
that  should  identify  him  with  his  people. 

HIS  UNIVERSAL  SYMPATHY. 

Then,  again,  we  are  to  bear  in  mind  that  he  manifest- 
ed a  universal  sympathy  with  men.  I  am  not  speak- 
ing, now,  of  that  kind  of  universal  sympathy  which 
would  remind  you  of  a  cloud  that  moves  over  a  whole 
continent,  and  therefore  is  universal,  raining  alike  on 
everything.  What  I  mean,  distinctly,  is  this  :  that  I 
am  struck,  in  following  the  Saviour  in  his  walk  through 
the  land,  to  see  how  he  treated  alike  every  class,  whether 
civic,  professional,  or  moral,  —  that  is,  how  he  treated 
them  with  sympathy.  The  poor  he  treated  with  rare 
tenderness ;  but  with  not  a  whit  more  tenderness  than 
he  did  the  rich  Pharisees,  who  were  able  to  throw 
open  their  houses  and  invite  him  to  dinner.  He  had  a 
heart  for  rich  men  just  as  much  as  for  poor  men.  He 
walked  with  them  when  it  was  natural  that  he  should. 
He  had  no  prejudice  against  persons  because  they  were 
in  office.  He  was  not  opposed  to  rulers,  to  Pharisees 
and  Sadducees,  as  such.    If  he  met  them,  and  they 


Me  DlVlNE  LIFE  IN  HUMAN  CONDITIONS.  173 

were  right-minded  men,  the  fact  of  their  official  position 
did  not  repel  him  from  them. 

In  the  earlier  stages  of  his  ministry  the  men  who 
were  high  in  station  looked  him  over  to  make  use  of 
him.  They  hoped  that  he  would  be  the  foremost 
Pharisee,  that  he  would  exert  his  power  in  their  behalf, 
and  that  he  would  serve  their  party ;  and  they  became 
antagonistic  to  him  only  when  they  despaired  of  mak- 
ing him  partial,  and  of  shutting  him  up  within  the 
bounds  of  a  party  movement.  To  the  Roman  centurion 
he  was  kind,  though  the  class  were  foreigners,  and 
hated  by  the  Jewish  people.  He  showed  himself  be- 
nign and  considerate  and  tender  to  the  Syro-Phoenician 
woman,  although  he  at  first  tantalized  her,  as  a  means 
of  developing  that  which  was  in  her,  —  for  it  seems  to 
me  that  her  case  was  like  that  where  the  diver  brings 
up  an  oyster  from  the  depths  below.  Rude  and  rough, 
it  is  most  unseemly  ;  but  he  knocks  it  and  beats  it 
with  his  knife,  and  finally  inserts  the  blade,  and  cuts 
the  ligament ;  and  behold,  there  is  the  pearl,  which 
never  would  have  been  seen  if  the  oyster  had  not  been 
opened  in  that  way.  So  Christ  opened  men  by  draw- 
ing out  what  was  in  them,  to  reveal  the  exquisite  jew- 
els that  were  hidden  there.  You  never  would  know 
what  a  geode  is  if  you  did  not  crack  it  with  a  hammer. 
When  you  crack  it,  you  find  it  to  be  filled  with  crys- 
tals.   I  wonder  what  the  geode  thinks  about  it ! 

Now,  Christ  went  among  the  rich  and  the  poor  alike. 
And  he  had  compassion  for  all  classes.  His  nature 
was  one  of  universal  sympathy,  such  that  men  felt  that 
he  liked  them.  Wherever  he  went  he  produced  that 
impression. 


174 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


Did  you  ever  go  by  a  rose-bush,  in  the  morning^ 
when  the  dew  was  on  it,  and  it  was  saying  its  prayers  ? 
And  when  its  odor  and  fragrance  came  out  upon  you 
so  fresh  and  so  grateful  that  it  stopped  you  in  your 
course,  or  on  your  errand,  and  you  took  three  or  four 
additional  quaffs,  did  you  ever  do  it  without  feeling, 
"  This  rose-bush  likes  me  "  ?  Did  it  not  bring  to  you  a 
certain  sense  of  the  gift-power  on  the  part  of  the  rose-, 
bush,  as  if  it  were  conscious  ? 

Wherever  Christ  went  he  exhaled  something.  There 
was  that  in  him  which,  whether  he  went  among  the 
high  or  low,  rich  or  poor,  bond  or  free,  good  or  bad, 
publicans  and  harlots  or  Essenes  and  Sadducees  and 
Pharisees,  drew  men  to  him.  He  made  life  sweeter  to 
them.  He  made  them  feel  that  there  was  something 
precious  near  them.  He  woke  them  up  and  stimulated 
them. 

If  this  was  merely  a  great  moral  consciousness  in  the 
world,  it  was  one  thing  ;  but  if  it  was  the  Divine  Being 
carrying  himself  in  human  conditions,  it  is  another  and 
very  different  thing,  of  which  I  shall  speak. 

HIS  SUSCEPTIBILITY  TO  PERSONAL  AFFECTION. 

Bear  in  mind,  again,  the  great  susceptibility  which 
was  developed,  in  the  earthly  life  of  our  Lord,  to  the 
sentiment  of  love.  I  discriminate  between  benevolence 
and  love,  the  former  having  reference  to  being,  in  gen- 
eral ;  to  the  universal  capacity  of  experiencing  pleasure 
and  happiness ;  to  a  common  susceptibility  to  beauty 
and  desirableness :  the  latter  having  a  special  and  indi- 
vidual element. 

Now,  while  Christ  was  compassionate  and  benevo- 


THE  DIVINE  LIFE  IN  HUMAN  CONDITIONS.  175 

lent,  lie  had  also  to  a  remarkable  degree  the  faculty  of 
personal  love,  and  of  exciting  in  turn  the  most  enthusi- 
astic affection.  This,  too,  is  to  be  interpreted  from  the 
same  standpoint,  namely,  that  he  walked  in  the  con- 
sciousness of  his  own  divinity  among  men.  And  yet, 
when  the  young  man  came  to  him,  and  said,  "What 
shall  I  do  that  I  may  inherit  eternal  life  ? "  he  saw 
that  there  was  that  which  was  rare  and  excellent  in  the 
young  man,  and  he    looked  upon  him  and  loved  him." 

Not  simply  was  he  subject  to  those  gradual  yearn- 
ino's  of  the  heart  which  cautious  men  have  who  watch 

o 

over  against  a  heart  for  six  years,  and  then  try  it,  and 
at  last  come  into  a  kind  of  smoldering  affection  for 
it, — not  at  all.  With  him,  it  was  to  look  and  love. 
He  saw,  and  his  soul  went  out  with  a  gush.  It  is  the 
inspirational  and  spontaneous  carriage  of  his  affections 
that  strikes  me. 

I  take  notice  that  there  were  but  three  of  the  disci- 
ples that  he  specially  loved.  He  loved  them  all ;  but 
there  were  three  that  he  loved  better  than  the  others, 
—  Peter,  James,  and  John.  You  will  hardly  ever  see 
the  names  of  the  others  mentioned  except  in  an  inven- 
tory of  the  disciples.  These  three  were  generally  with 
him.  They  went  with  him  into  the  mountain,  and  into 
the  chamber  at  Jerusalem;  and  afterwards  they  were 
the  principal  men  who  figured  in  connection  with  him. 
Doubtless  the  others  were  useful  in  their  way :  but 
these  were  evidently  the  men  whom  he  loved.  Proba- 
bly he  loved  them  because  they  deserved  to  be  loved. 

You  will  take  notice  of  another  fact,  —  that  when  he 
made  the  acquaintance  of  the  family  at  Bethany  (the 
time  at  which  this  occurred  we  do  not  know ;  for  we 


176 


lectuhes  ok  pREACHma. 


have  only  fragments  of  the  history  of  the  life  of 
Christ ;  there  is  no  continuity  in  it ;  certainly  there  is 
nothing  like  amplitude  in  the  accounts  which  we  have 
concerning  him.  John,  you  know,  said,  "There  are 
also  many  other  things  which  Jesus  did,  the  which,  if 
they  should  be  written  every  one,  I  suppose  that  even 
the  world  itself  could  not  contain  the  books  that  should 
be  written"  — whicli  I  do  not  take  to  be  literal,  ex- 
actly, but  which  is  an  Oriental  exaggeration  that  gives 
you  some  conception  of  the  multiplicity  of  events  con- 
nected with  his  life  that  have  not  been  recorded),  —  you 
will  take  notice  that  when  he  made  the  acquaintance 
of  Lazarus  and  Mary  and  Martha,  it  is  declared  that  he 
loved  them;  and  the  kind  of  familiarity  with  which 
Martha  complained  to  him  about  Mary,  saying,  ''Do 
not  you  care  that  she  sits,  lazy,  at  your  feet,  while  I 
have  to  go  round  the  house  and  do  the  work  ? "  —  that 
kind  of  familiarity  does  not  spring  out  of  a  casual 
acquaintanceship.  It  comes  from  long  intimacy  and 
great  confidence. 

So,  it  is  plain  that  the  nature  of  Christ  w^as  one  that 
exercised  and  begot  direct  personal  love.  And  Christ 
was  God.  There  is  great  power  in  this  thought  to  me. 
The  things  that  he  did,  he  did  not  do  because  he  was  a 
man.  Being  God,  and  walking  as  a  man  among  men, 
he  did  these  things ;  and  they  show  how  the  divine 
nature  acted  through  him. 

I  will  challenge  all  human  literature  to  produce  the 
equal  of  the  last  discourses  of  our  Master,  as  they  are 
given  by  John.  He  delivered  them  while  standing 
under  the  very  cope  of  death,  when  he  felt  the  full 
premonition  that  his  time  had  come,  when  he  knew 


THE  DIVINE  LIFE  IN  HUMAN  CONDITIONS.  177 


what  was  before  him.  In  the  midst  of  the  whole  round 
and  orb  of  unexampled  and  mysterious  suffering  he  said 
to  his  beloved,  that,  having  loved  them,  he  would  love 
them  unto  the  end. 

Now  read  that  discourse  of  love.  How  deep  it  is ! 
How  high  it  is  !  How  strange  it  would  be,  if  we  had 
not  been  so  familiar  with  it  that  we  walk  over  it  like  a 
dusty  road,  and  tread  it  under  our  feet !  It  is  wonder- 
ful beyond  all  comprehension  that  in  such  an  hour  that 
Heart  of  conscious  Divinity  should  have  burned  so 
toward  these  poor,  ignorant,  fearful,  ambitious,  preju- 
diced disciples,  and  poured  over  them  a  declaration, 
time  and  time  again,  that  might  make  an  angel  trem- 
ble with  joy.  And  to  say  to  me  that  it  was  a  man 
who  did  it  would  make  him  a  wonderful  man,  —  but  it 
would  spoil  all  my  Bible.  To  tell  me,  on  the  other 
hand,  that  that  was  the  carriage  of  God's  heart,  would 
bring  God  very  near  to  me,  and  open  to  me  the  future 
in  a  way  that  nothing  else  could. 

ATTRACTIVENESS  OF  CHRIST'S  BEARING. 

More  than  this,  I  call  you  to  take  notice  of  that  va- 
riety, that  play  of  every  part  and  side  of  the  Divine 
nature  in  Christ,  which  made  him  the  most  attractive 
and  fascinating  man  of  his  time.  I  think  that  the 
attempts  to  make  perfect  men  are  about  the  dreariest 
things  that  take  place  in  fiction  and  biography.  I 
never  saw  one  of  that  class  who  are  called  "perfect 
men  "  that  I  would  not  go  five  miles  across  lots  to  get 
out  of  his  way. 

When  we  undertake  to  make  perfect  moral  men  ac- 
cording to  the  prevailing  idea,  they  are  so  dry,  so  pre- 

8*  L 


178 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


cise,  SO  rigid,  so  afraid  of  evil,  and  so  distrustful  of 
themselves,  that  we  take  pretty  much  all  the  color  out 
of  their  cheek,  and  pretty  much  all  the  throb  out  of 
their  heart,  and  pretty  much  all  the  vim  out  of  their 
hand,  and  pretty  much  all  the  wildness  and  freedom 
out  of  their  foot,  and  leave  them  with  scarcely  any  of 
those  elements  which  make  them  agreeable  compan- 
ions in  life.  And  it  is  often  said,  "  That  man  is  spoiled 
by  religion.  He  has  joined  the  church,  and  he  is  not 
anything  like  the  good  fellow  that  he  was  before.  He 
used  to  have  a  free  and  large  nature ;  but  now  he  has 
a  mask  on  his  face,  and  a  corselet  on  his  breast,  and 
greaves  on  his  legs."  People  are  consoled  by  the 
hope  that  the  disclosure  of  his  good  qualities  will  take 
place,  as  I  also  hope  it  will,  in  the  life  that  is  to  come. 

Now,  it  is  an  utter  pity  for  goodness  to  be  made 
poor,  lean,  and  mean.  It  is  a  pity  that  selfishness,  that 
pride,  that  the  intellect,  that  that  which  is  of  this 
world,  should  be  made  more  radiant  and  glorious  than 
those  higher  qualities  which  belong  to  the  Christian 
character.  It  is  a  pity  that  men  should  look  upon 
secular  heroes,  and  say,  as  they  are  often  obliged  to 
say,  "  Well,  if  he  is  a  worldly  man,  he  is  a  royal  fel- 
low. He  is  wrong,  he  is  loose  in  his  habits,  there  are 
many  things  about  him  which  cannot  be  justified ;  but 
he  is  a  first-rate  specimen  of  a  man,  after  all."  And  it 
is  a  pity. 

It  is  a  pity  that  of  men  created  of  God,  and  regener- 
ated by  Divine  grace,  it  should  be  said,  They  are  good 
men,  to  be  sure,  but  they  are  so  uninteresting  !  Yes, 
they  are  good  men,  but  they  are  a  little  dry.  Yes, 
they  are  good  men,  they  are  conscientious,  but  their 


THE  DIVINE  LIFE  IN  HUMAN  CONDITIONS.  179 

conscience  is  like  a  harness  every  buckle  of  which 
girds  at  each  step.  0  yes,  they  are  good  men  I  So- 
ciety has  to  have  all  sorts  of  men,  and  good  men  fill 
up."  I  always  feel  humiliated  and  ashamed  when  I 
hear  such  talk.  Divine  wisdom,  divine  purity,  divine 
disinterestedness,  divine  integrity,  divine  justice,  yea, 
divine  penalty,  all  of  them  are  heroic ;  and  if  we  could 
but  see  them  as  they  are  seen  above,  they  would  seem 
beautiful  to  us.  There  is  nothing  on  earth  so  beautiful 
as  wisdom,  the  beginning  of  all  beauty ;  there  is  noth- 
ing so  free ;  there  is  nothing  so  large ;  there  is  nothing 
so  attractive ;  there  is  nothing  so  desirable. 

Holding  this  view,  when  I  come  to  read  of  the  earth- 
walking  of  my  God, —  my  Jesus-God,  —  I  find  that  he 
had  just  that  liberty  and  just  that  spring  which  comes 
from  the  supremacy  of  the  higher  elements  of  the  soul. 
He  did  not  go  around  all  the  while  with  his  resolutions 
in  his  hands,  and  with  a  sort  of  half-consciousness  that 
he  was  under  a  necessity  of  being  good.  It  does  me 
good  to  see  that  he  was  grieved.  It  gratifies  me  to 
know  that  he  was  angry  sometimes ;  I  would  not  have 
had  it  otherwise  for  the  world.  A  nature  that  can- 
not be  made  angry  in  this  world  must  be  a  stagnant 
pool  wdth  waters  so  thick  that  the  winds  cannot  stir 
them.  I  am  pleased  that  he  was  subject  to  moods  that 
came  and  went ;  that  his  mind  experienced  changes ; 
that  he  had  elevations  and  depressions  of  feeling, — 
in  other  words,  that  the  imagination,  the  reasoning,  the 
affections  and  the  moral  sentiments,  and  all  the  appe- 
tites and  passions  in  him,  stood  serving  his  predominant 
feeling  of  love  in  such  ways  that  they  adjusted  them- 
selves to  the  infinite  varieties  of  life. 


180 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


Christ  was  not  a  stiff,  stark  censor,  walking  among 
men  in  such  a  way  that  children  ran  away  from  him. 
He  never  would  have  made  you  think  of  the  ideal  dea- 
con, —  never ! 

Take  a  dramatic  scene.  It  is  the  only  one  that  is 
recorded ;  but  there  were  many  others,  —  I  will  vouch 
for  it. 

On  one  occasion,  when  he  was  talking  to  the  grown 
folks,  such  was  the  influence  which  he  produced  on  the 
people  in  the  crowd,  that  mothers,  with  babes  in  their 
arms,  as  they  stood  listening  to  this  man's  preaching, 
had  an  impulse.  What  was  that  impulse  ?  What  is 
the  impulse  that  people  often  feel  when  they  hear  a 
minister  preach  in  a  church  ?  Anything  but  a  sense 
of  personal  adhesion.  Anything  but  a  desire  to  run  to 
him.  But  when  Christ  was  discoursing,  right  and  left, 
through  the  crowd,  these  mothers,  who  loved  their  chil- 
dren and  who  had  their  world  in  their  arms,  had  this 
impulse :  "  0,  my  boy  would  be  a  better  man  all  his 
life  if  He  would  just  touch  him  ! "  And  one  said  it  to 
another.  And  they  pressed  themselves  up  to  this  man. 
Such  a  man  he  seemed  to  them,  that  they  said,  "  If  he 
will  but  lay  his  hand  on  my  child,  it  will  be  a  priceless 
boon."  But  the  disciples  had  the  old  Jewish  notion  of 
propriety,  and  said  to  these  mothers,  "  Go  away ;  he  is 
talking  to  grown  folks,  not  to  children." 

Well,  now,  there  is  another  feature  connected  with 
that  which  ought  not  to  be  lost  sight  of,  namely,  that 
the  children  did  not  cry  and  run  away  from  Christ,  but 
nestled  right  up  to  him.  This  was  remarkable  ;  for,  as 
you  very  well  know,  children  are  shy  of  strangers,  and 
not  once  in  ten  thousand  times  could  you  take  a  child 


THE  DIVINE  LIFE  IN  HUMAN  CONDITIONS.  181 

into  a  great  noisy,  boisterous  crowd,  and  not  have  it 
frightened  and  restless.  You  know  that  almost  never 
will  a  child  sit  perfectly  still  during  a  discourse.  But 
in  this  case  they  seem  to  have  been  quiet  and  con- 
tented ;  and  we  have  it  recorded  that  Christ  took  them 
up  in  his  arms,  and  laid  his  hands  upon  them  and 
blessed  them.  There  were  those  little  cuddling  chil- 
dren sitting  still  while  he  was  talking ;  and  when  they 
were  brought  to  him  he  lifted  them  up,  and  put  his 
arms  around  them,  and  laid  his  hand  on  their  heads  ; 
and  I  do  not  doubt  that  he  kissed  them  every  one. 

This  reveals  two  things,  —  the  effect  that  he  produced 
on  men,  and  his  own  feelings  toward  them.  He  was 
divine.  That  was  divinity.  That  is  the  way  the  heart 
of  God  acts.  It  was  let  down  among  you,  and  right 
into  your  conditions,  in  order  that  it  miglit  act  so  that 
you  could  stand  and  see  it ;  and  so  that  when,  after- 
wards, you  lifted  it  up  into  the  infinite  sphere,  you 
should  lift  up  the  right  thing,  and  lift  it  up  in  right 
directions. 

JESUS  NOT  A  FAULT-FINDER. 

I  might  spend  the  whole  afternoon  in  detailing  in- 
stances of  this  kind :  but  there  is  one  more  point  that 
I  wish  to  speak  of,  namely,  that  this  man,  who  was 
filled  with  divine  consciousness ;  that  this  man,  who 
had  the  very  soul  of  purity  and  sinlessness ;  that  this 
man,  who  came  to  reveal,  as  far  as  the  world  was  pre- 
pared to  receive  them,  the  secrets  of  the  future  spir- 
itual and  eternal  realm ;  that  this  man,  who  was  the 
ruler  of  integrity ;  that  this  man,  who  carried  in  him- 
self the  intensest  sense  of  right,  —  that  he  rebuked  and 


182 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


criticised,  and  yet  never  was  qiierulous,  and  never  was 
fanlt-finding.  This  is  one  of  the  surprising  things.  I 
have  gone  through  the  four  Gospels  oftener  than  I  have 
gone  through  my  garden,  looking  and  hunting,  from 
the  beginning  to  the  end  of  them  (and,  young  gentle- 
men, this  is  not  a  very  hard  way  to  read  the  New 
Testament),  —  I  have  gone  right  straight  through  the 
Gospels  time  and  again,  to  see  what  was  the  mood  of 
Christ's  mind,  and  to  see  what  was  the  manner  in 
which  he  laid  that  mind,  with  rectitude  and  truth  in  it, 
on  the  erring,  wavering,  crude,  nascent  minds  of  the 
men  who  were  about  him ;  and  I  have  come  back  pro- 
foundly impressed  with  this  feeling :  that  he  was  not 
a  fault-finder,  and  that  he  did  not  go  into  neighbor- 
hoods and  families,  saying,  "  This  is  wrong ;  you  ought 
to  correct  that,"  and  so  on.  He  did  not  do  what  you 
see  many  conscientious  parents  do,  who  are  forever 
saying  to  their  children,  "  Take  care,  my  dear ;  don't 
do  that ;  keep  away  from  there  ;  you  must  n't  do  so," 
thus  always  holding  them  in  check,  and  giving  them 
forever  a  sense  of  their  imperfection.  He  was  not  like 
the  mother  whose  little  girl,  when  asked  by  her  Sun- 
day-school teacher  what  her  name  was,  said  it  was 
"Emma  Don't."  The  child  had  had  "don't"  said  to 
her  so  much  that  she  supposed  it  was  a  part  of  her 
name  I 

In  reading  the  life  of  Christ  we  derive  from  it,  what  ? 
A  sense  of  the  loftiness  of  his  spirit.  In  following  him 
through  his  career  among  men  on  earth,  what  find  we  ? 
Not  querulousness,  not  complaining ;  but  kindness  and 
love  toward  those  who  were  out  of  the  way.  The  peo- 
ple, in  his  presence,  felt  that  they  were  guilty ;  but  it 


THE  DIVINE  LIFE  IN  HUMAN  CONDITIONS.  183 

was  his  nature,  when  walking  among  imperfect  and 
sinful  men,  to  so  carry  himself  toward  them  that  they 
should  feel  the  cordial  of  the  Divine  heart,  and  be  lifted 
up  by  it.    This  I  take  to  be  very  significant. 

THE  PREACHER  MUST  MAKE  CHRIST  DESIRABLE. 

Now,  then,  my  first  remark,  in  view  of  these  facts, 
or  glances  toward  lines  of  fact,  is  this :  that  whoever 
preaches  Christ  among  men,  and  fails  to  make  him 
the  Chief  among  ten  thousand,  and  altogether  lovely, 
does  not  preach  Christ  as  Christ  preached  himself  It 
does  not  make  any  difference  where  you  put  him  in 
the  moral  government  of  God ;  it  does  not  make  any 
difference  how  much  you  build  texts  up  about  him  ; 
it  does  not  make  any  difference  how  you  analyze  him ; 
it  does  not  make  any  difference  how  you  incorporate 
him  into  a  philosophical  system ;  whatever  else  you 
do,  your  great  aim  must  be  to  make  him  appear  as  at- 
tractive and  beautiful  in  your  representations  as  he 
was  in  his  own  life.  That  is  the  test.  And  it  is  not 
enough  that  it  should  be  so  once  in  a  while :  such  is 
to  be  the  average  presentation.  For  he  is  the  Hope  of 
the  world ;  and  the  world  is  not  made  up  of  perfect 
men  and  perfect  women.  The  world  does  not  begin  at 
the  upper  sphere.  The  whole  race  is  born  low  ;  every 
generation  commences  at  the  bottom ;  and  what  the 
world  needs  is  something  that  shall  help  them,  that 
shall  encourage  them,  that  shall  lift  them  up.  That 
is  what  Christ  gave,  in  his  mission  upon  earth ;  and 
he  fails  rightly  to  apprehend  the  character  of  Christ, 
and  rightly  to  present  him  to  men,  who  does  not  make 
him  beautiful,  winning,  desired,  and  most  desirable. 


184 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


CHRIST'S  LOVE  TO  SINNERS. 

The  next  point  that  I  would  make  is,  that  our  Mas- 
ter produced  the  impression  of  exceeding  loveliness  and 
sympathy  and  yearning,  but  that  he  —  I  hardly  know 
what  term  to  use  ;  condescension  is  not  the  right  word, 
because  it  brings  in  the  idea  of  aristocracy  —  he  did  not 
sit  to  receive  men ;  he  bore  himself  in  on  them.  He 
did  not  allow  himself  to  be  a  part  of  the  race  in  a 
generic  and  philosophical  sense  alone  :  he  went  out  to 
men.    He  sought  them. 

It  is  one  thing  for  a  man  to  sit  in  state  and  receive 
calls  from  citizens,  and  greet  them  pleasantly  as  they 
come  one  after  another,  and  be  gracious  to  them,  and 
express  a  desire  to  be  better  acquainted  with  them,  and 
hsten  courteously  to  what  they  have  to  say,  —  it  is  one 
thing  to  do  tliis  ;  and  it  is  a  very  different  thing  for  a 
man  to  go  about  and  visit  those  citizens  in  their  vari- 
ous spheres  of  life. 

Now,  the  impression  derived  from  reading  the  life  of 
the  Saviour  is  this :  that  he  took  himself  to  men ;  in 
other  words,  that  he  came  down  and  joined  himself  to 
their  want  and  to  their  weakness.  The  point  of  union 
between  conscious  divinity  and  the  lowest  imperfection 
is,  that  it  is  the  nature  of  the  Divine  to  unite  itself  to 
weakness  in  order  to  medicate  it,  and  inspire  it  with 
strength  to  raise  itself  up. 

Ah,  if  I  had  known  this  in  early  life,  what  years 
of  struggle,  and  at  times  of  anguish,  I  might  have  been 
saved  !  But  I  thought  of  Christ  as  standing  beyond 
and  above  my  reach  ;  and  I  supposed  that  I  could  have 
the  comfort  and  the  blessedness  of  his  fellowship  only 


THE  DIVINE  LIFE  IN  HUMAN  CONDITIONS.  185 

when  I  had  complied  with  certain  conditions  ;  and  I 
spent  years  and  years  in  trying  to  comply  with  those 
conditions,  in  order  that  I  might  come  into  intimate 
relations  with  him.  But  if  I  had  known  that  it  was  his 
nature  to  come  right  to  me,  and  that  already  he  was 
mine,  and  mine  not  because  I  had  been  awakened,  and 
had  repented,  and  had  entered  upon  a  certain  course, 
but  because  I  was  poor,  and  needed  him,  that  would 
have  sustained  me.  To  be  Divine  is  to  take  care  of  the 
poor  and  needy  and  sinful :  and  if  I  had  known  that 
Christ  was  mine  because  I  was  poor  and  needy  and 
sinful ;  if  I  had  known  that  it  was  the  Divine  nature  to 
love,  and  to  love  those  who  were  degraded  and  unfor- 
tunate and  in  trouble  ;  if  I  had  known  that  I  had  my 
Christ  to  begin  with,  what  an  encouragement  it  would 
have  been  to  me !  If  I  had  known  that  it  was  the 
essential  nature  of  God  to  succor  the  oppressed,  to 
make  himself  a  ransom  for  those  who  were  in  bondage, 
to  bring  them  out  of  that  bondage,  and  to  break  up 
the  habits  and  destroy  the  evil  forces  which  were  in 
them  and  about  them,  by  a  celestial  inspiration  of  his 
own  heart  which  should  enable  them  to  become  the 
sons  of  God,  I  should  have  been  spared  much  solici- 
tude and  pain.  The  thought  that  he  lets  himself  down, 
and  takes  hold  of  the  human  race  as  they  are,  is  most 
encouraging.  It  is  divinity  to  do  that.  In  all  the  ele- 
ments of  the  universe  there  is  nothing  so  curative, 
nothing  so  lenient,  nothing  so  patient,  nothing  so 
sweet,  nothing  so  gentle,  nothing  so  considerate,  and 
nothing  so  adaptable,  as  the  Divine  nature.  There  is 
nothing  that  goes  down  to  the  infinitesimal  want  like 
that  Divine  love  which  is  supreme. 


186 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


O,  take  away  my  Jehovah,  but  do  not  take  away 
my  Jesus  !  When  I  behold  the  God  that  sits  back 
of  universal  thought,  and  back  of  immediate  power, 
that  reigns  in  the  vacuity  and  vastness  of  eternity,  I 
behold  One  who  is  most  venerable  and  admirable,  and 
it  makes  me  shudder  and  tremble  ;  and  the  more  I 
look  at  it  the  worse  it  is  :  but  let  me  look  at  One  who 
loves  the  poor,  and  is  sympathetic  toward  them,  and 
is  able  and  stands  ready  to  do  in  my  innermost  soul 
what  my  mother  did  for  me,  waiting  until  I  had  grown 
out  of  childhood,  and  helping  me  all  the  time,  —  let  me 
look  at  such  a  One,  and  think  that  he  is  patient  with 
men  while  they  are  being  developed  from  weakness  to 
strength,  and  I  feel  drawn  to  him.  Give  me  that  view 
of  Christ,  and  I  am  strong  for  myself,  not  only,  but  I 
have  strength  by  which  to  go  forth  and  preach  Christ 
to  my  fellow-men. 

A  speculative  Christ  you  will  have  to  preach,  many 
times ;  you  will  have  to  preach  a  doctrinal  Christ ; 
and  his  governmental  relations  to  men  you  will  have  to 
preach ;  but  the  mainstay  and  power  of  your  ministry 
must  be  in  this  :  the  preaching  of  Christ  as  the  Lover  of 
sinners.  God  so  loved  mankind  that  he  gave  his  Son 
to  die  for  them.  He  loved  them  before  they  had  shown 
repentance  or  reformation ;  he  loved  them  while  yet 
they  were  at  enmity  to  him ;  and  he  gave  them  the 
best  gift  that  he  had  to  give. 

PREACHING  MUST  BE  ENFORCED  BY  PRACTICE. 

So,  then,  once  more,  in  preaching  this  Christ,  the  fact 
must  come  out  —  it  ought  to  come  out,  at  any  rate  — 
that  the  identification  between  Christ  and  the  truth  is 


THE  DIVINE  LIFE  IN  HUMAN  CONDITIONS.  187 

to  have  an  answering  element  in  you.  Christ  said, 
"  Come  unto  me,  all  ye  that  labor  and  are  heavy  laden, 
and  I  will  give  you  rest.  Take  my  yoke  upon  you,  and 
learn  of  me  ;  for  I  am  meek  and  lowly  in  heart."  It  is 
as  if  he  had  said,  "  I  am  the  exemplification  of  my  own 
teaching.  Do  I  talk  to  you  about  meekness  ?  Look 
at  me  and  see  what  I  mean.  Do  I  talk  to  you  about 
love  ?  Look  at  me  and  see  what  I  mean.  Do  I  talk  to 
you  about  giving  your  life  for  those  who  are  around 
about  you  ?  Look  at  me  and  see  how  I  am  doing  it. 
Do  I  talk  to  you  about  being  patient  under  provoca- 
tions ?  See  how  I  act  under  provocations."  He  car- 
ried in  himself  his  creed,  and  said  to  men,  "  Learn  of 
me." 

Now,  in  your  ministry  you  are  to  reproduce  that 
which  you  desire  to  impress  upon  men ;  and  you  can 
never  reproduce  the  heart  by  the  head  :  you  can  never 
reproduce  a  spiritual  truth  by  a  philosophical  idea. 
You  must  arouse  the  higher  life  of  men  by  exhibiting 
to  them  the  thing  itself  which  you  are  aiming  to  de- 
velop in  them.  Christ  preached,  being  himself  a  rep- 
resentation of  humility  and  gentleness  and  meekness 
and  disinterestedness  and  love ;  and  you  are  to  follow 
his  example  in  this  regard.  You  will  not  preach  effec-  \ 
tually  either  in  the  pulpit  or  in  the  pew  until  you  can 
show  the  fruits  of  the  Spirit.  When  you  can  do  that, 
you  will  preach  to  some  purpose. 

I  think  that  if  there  were  a  church  of  two  hundred 
men  and  women  on  the  globe,  who  were  united  in  the 
enthusiasm  of  their  higher  moral  feelings,  they  would 
make  their  way  in  the  world  like  an  army  with  ban- 
ners.   The  reason  why  churches  are  so  defective,  and 


188 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


why  their  power  is  so  limited,  is  the  want  of  that  con- 
tagious enthusiasm  of  soul  which  they  need  to  enable 
them  to  resist  every  temptation,  to  abide  in  the  spirit 
of  love,  to  overcome  evil  in  every  form,  to  endure  trial 
whenever  it  shall  overtake  them,  —  in  short,  to  be  like 
the  Lord  and  Saviour  Jesus  Christ.  Put  into  the 
various  relations  of  life  one  or  two  hundred  persons 
whose  life  should  be  exactly  conformed  to  the  exam- 
ple and  teaching  of  the  Saviour,  and  sooner  could  men 
stand  before  the  compound  blow-pipe  than  they  could 
stand  before  such  a  living  exemplification  of  the  gos- 
pel as  it  is  laid  down  in  the  New  Testament.  What  we 
lack  is  not  theology  ;  simply  to  live  upon  that  would 
be  like  gnawing  a  bone :  what  we  want  is  life,  —  life, 
—  LIFE  ! 

THE  TRAITS  OF  JESUS  EXPANDED  TO  INFINITY. 

I  had  occasion  to  say,  in  a  former  lecture,  that  you 
must  beware  of  locating  your  present  Christ  in  old 
Jerusalem.  Now  you  see  how  it  is,  that  when  you 
wish  to  carry  the  thoughts  of  your  people  to  the  ever- 
living  Christ,  you  are  to  do  it  in  such  a  way  as  to  de- 
velop a  sense  of  his  loving  and  forgiying  nature.  He 
is  not  different  in  heaven  from  what  he  was  on  earth, 
except  in  method.  You  know  not  how  spirits  live  ; 
you  know  not  the  conditions  of  spirit-life  ;  but  you 
know  that  every  one  of  those  truths  which  he  showed 
on  earth  he  showed  under  great  disadvantage.  You 
know  that  on  earth  he  was  limited  and  restricted  ;  and 
if,  under  such  circumstances,  he  pitied  men,  how  is  it 
in  heaven  ?  He  has  not  lost  the  quality  of  pity  there, 
but  it  has  taken  on  greater  power  and  scope  and  re- 


ME  DIVINE  LIFE  IN  HUMAN  CONDITIONS.  189 


source.  Did  he  have  disinterested  love  upon  earth  ? 
Then  in  his  heavenly  estate  it  is  expanded  boundlessly. 
Did  he  on  earth  give  himself  that  others  might  not 
perish,  or  suffer  ?  That  he  is  doing  in  heaven  to-day, 
including  in  his  mercy  all  intelligent  beings  in  the  uni- 
verse. 

There  is  no  one  who  carries  so  many  burdens  as  God 
manifest  in  Christ.  There  is  no  one  that  carries  so 
much  sympathy  and  so  much  succor  as  he.  There  is 
no  one  who,  like  him,  bears  the  wants  of  the  race,  as  a 
father  and  a  mother  bear  the  necessities  of  their  much- 
loved  children,  doing  more  for  those  that  are  threat- 
ening to  break  away  and  go  loose  than  for  those  that 
are  obedient  and  virtuous.  He  is  one  who  said  there 
should  be  ''joy  in  heaven  over  one  sinner  that  repent- 
eth,  more  than  over  ninety  and  nine  just  persons  which 
need  no  repentance." 

This  is  Jesus  transferred,  in  our  thoughts,  to  the 
infinite  sphere.  And  when  you  represent  to  your 
people  God's  heart  in  the  heavenly  land,  make  it  up 
of  elements  which  were  manifest  in  the  Lord  Jesus 
Christ  on  earth.  The  true  use  of  those  elements  is  to 
mold  them  together,  exalt  them  to  the  upper  sphere, 
and  then  direct  your  people  from  the  letter  to  the 
spirit.  And  by  and  by,  as  your  hearers  more  and  more 
follow  this  glorified  conception,  there  will  be  a  likeness 
in  them  to  the  Master ;  and  they  shall  grow  more  and 
more  radiant,  more  and  more  like  him,  more  arid  more 
joyful,  until  he  shall  come  for  them. 

THE  preacher's  REWARD. 

And,  young  gentlemen,  it  matters  but  very  little 


190 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


what  titles  you  get  here,  what  emoluments,  what  confi- 
dence, and  what  pleasure ;  for  when  you  shall  stand 
at  the  coming  of  the  Lord,  in  the  gateway  of  heaven, 
saying  to  him,  "  Here  am  1,  and  these  whom  I  have 
brought,"  one  greeting,  one  look,  from  him  will  repay 
you  for  every  groan,  for  every  sorrow,  for  every  sadness, 
and  for  all  the  waiting  that  you  ever  knew  upon  earth. 
You  are  sons  of  God  walking  in  disguise.  What  you 
do  now  you  know  not. 

I  can  conceive,  since  the  extension  of  the  use  of  elec- 
tricity, of  a  man,  some  old  Beethoven,  deaf,  sitting  in 
his  room  and  playing  on  an  instrument  half  a  mile 
away,  by  means  of  wires  connecting  that  instrument 
with  the  keys  that  are  under  his  hand.  I  can  imagine 
how,  as  he  rolled  off  wonderful  strains  of  music  which 
he  could  not  hear,  an  audience,  unbeknown  to  him, 
might  be  gathered  about  that  far-off  instrument,  listen- 
ing, music-struck. 

In  this  world  you  are  playing  on  keys  whose  re- 
sponse is  in  the  heavenly  land,  where  you  cannot  hear, 
but  angels  listen  to  it ;  and  when  you  return  and  come 
to  Zion  with  songs  and  everlasting  joy  upon  your 
heads,  you  will  be  among  the  happiest  of  all  that  have 
lived  upon  earth,  —  kings  and  priests  unto  God. 


VIII. 


SINS  AND  SINFULNESS. 

March  15,  1874. 

SOMEWHAT  fear,  this  afternoon,  that  I 
shall  render  myself  liable  to  misapprehen- 
sion, —  a  thing  so  rare  that  I  might  venture 
upon  it  as  a  luxury,  perhaps,  if  it  were  not 
for  the  importance  of  the  theme  which  I  purpose  to 
discuss,  namely,  the  subject  of  Sins  and  Sinfulness. 

HUMAN  SINFULNESS  A  FUNDAMENTAL  FACT. 

I  suppose  I  have  as  deep  a  personal  consciousness, 
and  as  strong  and  abiding  a  sense  of  the  sinfulness 
of  the  race,  and  of  the  indispensable  need  of  Divine 
interposition  in  behalf  of  men  on  account  of  sin,  as 
any  man  with  my  faculties  could  have ;  and,  therefore, 
in  the  course  of  my  statements,  I  must  not  be  under- 
stood either  as  lowering  the  importance,  or  as  in  any 
way  doing  away  with  the  fact,  of  that  doctrine,  which 
underlies  theology.  For,  although  the  grand  architec- 
tural facts  of  scientific  theology  are  the  existence,  the 
will,  and  the  government  of  God,  yet  the  fundamental 
fact  is  the  sinfulness  of  man.  That  fact  is  to  theology 
what  disease  is  to  medicine.    Unless  there  were  dis- 


192 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


eases,  there  could  be  no  science  of  medicine.  There 
might  be  a  science  of  hygiene,  but  there  could  be  none 
of  remedy;  and  unless  there  were  sinfulness  in  man, 
there  could  be  no  doctrine  of  repentance,  of  new  birth, 
of  atonement,  or  of  Divine  inspiration  and  recuperative 
power,  —  in  short,  almost  nothing  would  be  left. 

THE  SCRIPTURAL  VerSUS  THE  SCHOLASTIC  MODE  OF 
DISCUSSING  IT. 

And  yet  it  is  remarkable  that  our  ideas  of  sin,  for 
the  most  part,  have  come  to  us  neither  from  the  Gos- 
pel nor  from  an  original  observation  of  facts  as  they 
are,  —  that  is  to  say,  neither  from  the  authority  of 
Christ  nor  from  scientific  induction.  The  questions  as 
they  have  been  mostly  discussed  have  come  down  to 
us  from  the  schools.  They  may  be  none  the  better 
and  none  the  worse  for  that ;  but,  as  a  mere  matter  of 
fact,  to  a  large  extent  the  questions  which  have  con- 
cerned the  minds  of  thinkers  in  theology,  and  which 
run  through  all  my  remembrance  as  I  was  trained  to 
discussion  in  the  seminary,  and  which  were  supposed 
to  have  a  most  important  relation  to  the  right  found- 
ing of  Christian  ministers,  are  questions  which  we 
have  derived  from  the  philosophy  of  the  schools. 

Christ  never,  in  a  single  instance  that  T  can  discover, 
defined  the  nature  of  sin.  Nor  can  I  find  a  single 
instance  in  which  he  declared  that  the  race  were  uni- 
versally sinful.  That  form  of  statement,  which  is  so 
common  with  us  as  to  be  supposed  to  be  Scriptural,  is 
not  found  in  the  teaching  of  the  Saviour,  at  any  rate, 
whatever  may  be  the  case  in  respect  to  the  Apostles. 
I  do  not  mean  by  this  that  there  is  no  hint,  that  we 


SINS  AND  SINFULNESS. 


193 


ought  not  to  find  it  out,  and  that  there  may  not  be  a 
very  powerful  influence  exerted  by  philosophical  in- 
quisition :  I  merely  say  that  such  is  not  the  way  in 
which  Christ  preached.  He  did  not  preach  universal 
sinfulness :  he  preached  about  sins.  He  did  not  preach 
the  abstract  philosophy  of  wrong-doing :  far  more ;  as- 
suming universal  wrong-doing,  he  dwelt  on  the  ele- 
ments of  recovery,  and  of  the  power  of  repentance,  of 
the  new  life,  and  of  Divine  succor.  He  continually 
pointed  out  to  men,  and  to  each  kind  of  men  as  he  met 
them,  their  special  sins.  He  did  not  say,  Your  nature 
is  depraved";  he  said,  "Go,  sell  all  that  thou  hast: 
come,  follow  me,  and  great  shall  be  thy  reward  in 
heaven." 

Now,  when  a  man  loves  money,  it  seems  rather  hard 
to  tell  him  to  give  away  all  that  he  has,  and  he  shall 
be  paid  up  in  heaven ;  the  time  to  wait  is  so  long ! 
But  the  keynote  of  that  man's  life  was  struck ;  and  he 
went  away  convicted,  probably,  ten  thousand  times 
more  than  he  would  have  been  if  the  philosophical 
and  general  doctrine  of  sinfulness,  which  included  him, 
had  been  taught  to  him.  For  it  may  be  laid  down  as 
very  certain  that  anything  which  is  predicated  of  the 
whole  race,  and  which  belongs  to  any  individual  man 
in  common  with  the  whole  race,  will  not  very  much 
disturb  him ;  if  there  is  to  be  that  which  shall  disturb 
him,  it  must  be  something  which  is  personal  to  him, 
which  is  peculiar  to  him,  which  singles  him  out,  and 
which  makes  him  ashamed  and  sorry  for  himself ; 
whereas,  things  that  unite  him  to  all  his  race  in  very 
many  ways  take  off  the  edge  of  consciousness,  and 
abate  self-condemnatory  judgments. 

VOL.  III.  9  M 


194 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


Nevertheless,  in  theology  we  find  generic  questions 
rather  than  specific ;  or,  that  which  is  specific  is  re- 
mitted to  the  sphere  of  ethics  or  morality. 

More  than  that,  there  has  grown  up,  as  distinguished 
from  the  doctrinal  preaching  of  sin  generically,  a  kind 
of  contempt  for  preaching  against  specialties,  as  if 
that  was  superficial ;  as  if  it  belonged  rather  to  the 
department  of  morals ;  as  if  to  preach  on  sins  was  not 
nearly  so  efficacious  as  to  preach  on  sinfulness ;  and  so 
the  general  disposition  has  been  greatly  insisted  upon, 
while  specific  issues  have  not  been  made  so  much  of. 

THE  ORIGIN  OF  EVIL. 

First  comes  the  question  of  questions,  —  that  of  the 
origin  of  evil ;  and  if  all  the  books,  all  the  tracts,  all 
the  pamphlets,  all  the  sermons,  and  all  the  articles 
which  have  been  written  on  that  subject  were  gath- 
ered together,  and  heaped  up,  not  the  pyramids  of 
Egypt  would  be  so  large  as  the  pile  which  they  would 
make ;  and  if  all  the  passions  which  have  been  excited 
in  the  discussion  one  against  another  were  concentra- 
ted, there  would  be  fire  enough  to  burn  them  all  to  ashes. 

As  to  the  origin  of  evil,  this  is  to  be  said :  We  know 
just  as  much  about  it  as  our  fathers  did,  and  not  a  bit 
more ;  they  knew  as  much  about  it  as  we  do,  and  not 
a  bit  more ;  and  neither  did  they  nor  do  we  know  any- 
thing about  it. 

Suppose  the  schools  of  medicine,  instead  of  discuss- 
ing the  structure  of  man,  instead  of  investigating  his 
organization,  instead  of  acquainting  themselves  with 
the  nervous  system,  the  venous  system,  the  arterial 
system,  the  muscular  system,  instead  of  inquiring  into 


SINS  AND  SINFULNESS. 


195 


the  wholesome  conditions,  the  morbid  conditions,  and 
the  remedial  conditions  of  the  body,  ^ — suppose  that, 
instead  of  doing  tliese  things,  they  (the  Homoeopaths, 
the  Allopaths,  and  the  others)  should  quarrel  as  to  the 
origin  of  disease,  as  to  how  it  came  into  the  world,  as 
to  who  was  sick  first,  and  as  to  why  that  person  was 
sick  ?  That  would  be  no  more  a  waste  of  time  and 
brains  than,  in  considering  the  interior  or  spiritual 
structure  of  man,  to  burrow  after  the  origin  of  evil, 
and  follow  up  the  questions  which  spring  out  of  this 
one,  going  back  and  asking,  "  Why  did  God  make  the 
world  as  he  did  ?  Why  did  he  not  make  it  in  some 
other  way  ? " 

THE  NATURE  OF  SIN. 

Then  comes  another  discussion,  which  I  do  not  say 
is  unimportant,  though  I  do  say  it  has  relation  to  a 
side  of  your  work  other  than  that  of  preaching, — 
namely,  the  discussion,  in  certain  stages  of  the  devel- 
opment of  the  theological  system,  of  the  question  as  to 
the  nature  of  sin.  The  question  is  asked  :  "  Is  it  phys- 
ical and  inherent,  so  that  a  man  is  born  into  this 
world  with  a  sinful  nature,  that  in  some  way  comes 
down  to  him  from  his  father,  as  scrofula  or  a  tendency 
to  gout,  or  anything  of  that  kind,  often  does  ?  Is  sin 
a  kind  of  physical  secretion  ? "  This  view  is  scarcely 
?ield  now ;  but  there  has  been  a  wordy  war  on  that 
subject.  Much  time  has  been  spent  by  men  in  dis- 
cussing the  nature  of  sin  as  a  physical  secretion. 

Then  there  is  the  question  as  to  whether  it  is  a 
moral  secretion ;  as  to  whether  a  man  has  a  sinful 
nature ;  as  to  whether  a  man  intellectually  and  mor- 


196 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


ally  is  sinful,  in  such  a  sense  that  the  moment  he  be- 
gins to  act  he  begins  to  do  wrong;  so  that  the  very 
first  throb  of  his  being  is  positively  evil,  unconscious, 
hereditary,  and  inevitable. 

Of  course,  if  a  man  is  thrust  into  the  world  with  a 
nature  which  is  born  to  strike,  he  is  no  more  responsi- 
ble for  striking  than  a  clock  is,  being  made  to  strike. 

Yet  the  theory  of  the  inherent  necessity  of  sin  is  at 
times  taught  with  a  vigor  that  would  lead  one  almost 
to  suppose  that  a  man  would  sin  if  he  did  not  sin,  as 
defeating  the  end  for  which  he  was  created ! 

Then  comes  the  question,  still  more  important,  or 
rather  still  nearer  to  touching  bottom,  as  to  whether 
sin  is  personal,  voluntary,  and  yet  flowing  from  an 
original  fountain  of  sin,  —  in  other  words,  as  to  whether 
Adam  was  the  reservoir  and  we  are  the  faucets.  I  do 
not  undertake  to  say  anything  on  that  subject.  I  am 
not  in  the  chair  of  didactic  theology.  I  may  simply 
say  that  I  do  not  think  it  is  profitable  to  present  that 
view  in  preacliing,  as  a  means  of  awakening  men,  or  of 
leading  them  to  conversion.  I  do  not  think  that  its 
effect  upon  the  understanding,  upon  the  imagination,  or 
upon  the  heart  is  likely  to  be  edifying. 

THE  DOCTRINE  OF  TOTAL  DEPRAVITY. 

Then,  sin  is  defined  in  all  sorts  of  ways,  as  if  it  were 
a  very  desirable  thing  to  get  a  generic  and  comprehen- 
sive term  for  it.  It  is  defined  by  affirmatives,  the  law 
of  selfishness  being  represented  as  predominating  in 
men ;  or  it  is  defined  by  negatives,  representing  that 
there  is  an  entire  absence  in  men  of  love  to  God  and 
of  a  sense  of  God. 


SINS  AND  SINFULNESS. 


197 


Now,  in  connection  with  that,  comes  a  mode  of  dis- 
cussing sin  which  I  suppose  does  not  prevail  in  our 
day  as  much  as  it  formerly  did.  (I  say  /  suppose,  be- 
cause, although  1  believe  in  going  to  meeting,  I  myself 
almost  never  hear  sermons  preached.  I  cannot,  there- 
fore, judge  of  what  the  preaching  is  in  the  majority  of 
churches.)  I  allude  to  the  doctrine  of  total  depravity, 
as  it  used  to  be  preached.  I  hold,  not  that  every  man 
is  responsible  for  the  statement  of  a  doctrine  which 
can  be  defended  according  to  an  obscure  or  abstract 
system,  but  that  every  man  shall  preach  any  doctrine 
that  he  preaches  at  all,  so  that  it  shall  defend  itself  in 
the  court  of  judgment  of  the  men  to  whom  he  preaches. 
I  hold  that  to  preach  the  truth  in  such  a  way  as  to 
cast  the  shadow  of  a  lie  upon  the  minds  of  men,  is  to 
mis-preach. 

If  you  say  that  men  are  born  imperfect,  and  that 
therefore  not  a  single  man  answers  the  end,  or  fulfills 
the  destiny,  for  which  he  was  created  ;  if  you  say  that 
men  are  so  created  that  the  recuperative  power  is 
in  God,  and  not  in  them ;  if  you  say  that,  in  the  very 
nature  of  things,  men,  partially  sinful,  are  every  one 
of  them  in  need  of  the  new  birth ;  if  you  say  that 
human  nature  is  such  that,  first  or  last,  the  moral 
sense,  the  reason,  the  social  affections,  and  every  ap- 
petite and  passion  have  sinned  in  their  turn,  and  do 
sin,  —  if  you  make  a  statement  like  that,  I  suppose 
no  person  will  object  to  it :  but  if  you  make  a  general 
statement,  to  the  effect  that  men  are  totally  depraved, 
you  will  be  misunderstood ;  you  will  run  the  risk  of 
confounding  together  all  grades  of  right  or  wrong, 
and  of  almost  effacing  the  distinctions  between  good 


198 


LECTURES  ON  PKEACHING. 


men  and  bad  men,  or  between  men  that  are  relatively 
good  and  men  that  are  relatively  bad;  and,  what  is 
more  than  all,  you  will  run  the  risk  of  violating  the 
moral  consciousness  of  men  ;  —  they  know  that,  as  thus 
broadly  put,  it  is  simply  not  true. 

You  can  never  make  a  mother,  who,  with  devoted 
love,  is  giving  up  night  and  day  for  her  babe,  repent  of 
that  love,  and  look  upon  it  as  if  it  were  an  evidence 
of  her  total  depravity.  You  can  never  make  a  friend 
who  ventures  his  life  for  another  friend,  without  second 
thought  and  without  recompense,  turn  about  and  write 
down  that  act  in  his  journal  as  being  an  evolution  of 
total  depravity. 

My  father  used  to  say  to  me  in  regard  to  the  better 
impulses  of  men  who  are  unregenerated,  My  son, 
those  are  nat'ral  affections.    There  is  no  such  thing  as 

o 

a  good  act  unless  it  comes  from  gracious  affections.  It 
is  not  until  an  act  is  inspired  and  qualified  by  the 
Divine  Spirit  that  it  becomes  good." 

Well,  I  can  say  that  as  much  as  he  said  it ;  but  I 
hold  also  that  the  Divine  Spirit  is  universal.  I  hold 
that  the  physical  man  finds  sufficient  development  and 
stimulus  in  the  physical  globe  that  is  around  about 
him ;  that  the  social  man  finds  motives  and  stimulants 
enough  in  his  social  relationship ;  that  the  moral  and 
spiritual  man  derives  peculiar  and  special  stimuli  from 
the  Divine  Soul,  which  overhangs  all  things,  and  is 
dealing  with  all  things ;  that  that  part  of  our  nature 
which  is  essentially  spiritual  always  comes  from  the 
inoculation  of  our  souls  by  the  Divine  Soul ;  and  that 
all  of  that  in  us  which  is  good  is  as  directly  the  fruit 
of  thQ  Divine  Spirit,  as  all  that  is  beautiful  and  fertile 


SINS  AND  SINFULNESS. 


199 


in  the  fields  is  the  fruit  of  the  sun  that  shines  upon  it. 
Without  summer  there  can  be  no  harvest ;  and  without 
the  sun  there  can  be  no  summer.  The  distinction 
which  my  father  drew  between  natural  and  divine 
fruits  of  the  Spirit  in  the  soul  was  not  well  founded 
under  such  circumstances. 

You  will  ask  me,  Do  you  not  believe  that  all  men 
are  sinful  ?  "  I  do.  Do  you  think  that  there  is  any 
action  of  a  man's  heart  that  is  perfect  ? "  Relatively, 
no,  I  do  not.  Do  you  believe  that  men  are  totally 
depraved  ? "  I  believe  that  men  are  sinful,  and  that 
they  sin  continually,  to  such  an  extent  that  they  need 
repentance,  change  of  heart,  Divine  help,  so  as  to  be- 
come new  creatures  in  Christ  Jesus.  I  believe  in  their 
need.  But  I  do  not  undertake,  with  my  plummet,  to 
sound  their  depths,  and  to  say  that  men  are  totally 
depraved,  —  that  is,  that  each  particular  faculty  has 
qualities  which  carry  it  out  of  such  and  such  and  such 
assignable  limits. 

THE  ERROR  OF  THE  UNITARIAN  DOCTRINE. 

There  are  advantages  which  come  from  a  wise  gen- 
eralization on  the  subject  of  sinfulness ;  but  there  is 
much  mischief  in  the  generalization  which  has  come 
down  to  us  on  that  subject.  We  live  in  an  age  in 
which  there  is  progress  in  various  departments  of 
knowledge,  and  in  which  men  are  looking  at  things 
from  a  different  standpoint  and  with  adaptations  dif- 
ferent from  those  of  other  times,  which  have  largely 
lost  their  force  now ;  a  powerful  reaction  has  been 
taking  place.  There  are  two  elements  coming  in.  The 
first     that  reaction  which  assumes  — I  think  unwisely. 


200 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


and  without  proper  observation  —  that  men,  so  far  from 
being  sinful,  only  sin  once  in  a  while,  just  enough  for 
variety;  and  that  when  placed  in  favorable  circum- 
stances men  prefer  to  do  right,  and  do  do  right.  This 
is  what  is  supposed  to  be  the  peculiar  heresy  of  the 
Unitarian  defection,  though  it  has  nothing  to  do  with 
the  Trinity  or  with  the  Atonement.  In  point  of  fact,  that 
development  carries  with  it  a  denial  of  the  fundamental 
sinfulness  of  human  life,  and  teaches  that  the  qualities 
of  a  man's  mind  are  essentially  virtuous,  and  that  when 
circumstances  favor,  for  the  most  part  the  actions  of 
men  are  right ;  thus,  invariably  and  inevitably  decreas- 
ing in  men  moral  depth,  the  sense  of  the  Divine  nature, 
and  intense  spirituality,  for  which  is  substituted  that 
poetic  or  mystic  sensibility  which  has  characterized  all 
those  sects  that  hold  a  loose  doctrine  on  the  subject  of 
men's  sinfulness. 

Now,  there  is  to  this  extent  some  truth  in  that  view, 
—  namely,  that  the  faculties  of  men  are  by  nature  set 
to  do  right  things.  Anger  is,  in  and  of  itself,  both 
right  and  necessary.  In  and  of  themselves  combative- 
ness,  and  destructiveness,  and  self-esteem,  and  love  of 
praise,  and  love  between  man  and  man,  and  benevo- 
lence, and  the  sense  of  beauty  and  taste,  —  these  are 
intrinsically  right ;  and  single  actions  proceeding  from 
these  are  right :  but  that  is  not  their  statement.  Men 
are  building  in  this  life ;  we  are  rearing  up  our  person- 
ality, and  the  question  is  not  so  much  whether  the 
original  faculties  in  their  innermost  nature  are  right  or 
not :  the  question  is.  When  men  are  building  a  character 
through  the  action  of  these  multiplex  faculties,  do  they 
use  them  so  that  from  day  to  day,  and  from  week  to 


SINS  AND  SINFULNESS. 


201 


week,  and  from  month  to  month,  and  from  year  to 
year,  they  are  working  out  excellences  of  holiness  ? 

A  man,  for  example,  takes  his  palette  to  paint.  His 
colors  are  all  right,  they  are  broken  right,  and  they  are 
mixed  right ;  but  when  he  begins  to  make  his  picture, 
and  put  in  his  tints,  and  produce  effects  of  light  and 
shade,  he  may  fail  utterly.  The  instruments  with 
which  he  works  are  right,  there  is  not  one  of  the  pig- 
ments that  is  not  perfect,  and  he  puts  them  on  with 
dextrous  strokes;  but  when  he  combines  them,  and 
makes  the  foreground,  the  middle-ground,  and  the  dis- 
tance, and  puts  his  objects  of  life  into  the  picture,  it  is 
a  botch.  He  uses  right  elements,  but  his  picture  is  a 
failure.  It  is  the  power  to  compose  with  right  ele- 
ments right  things,  that  he  lacks. 

The  alphabet  is  all  right ;  there  is  not  an  immoral 
element  in  it ;  but  how  many  wicked  books  have  been 
written  !  And  music  is  right,  in  every  note  ;  and  yet  it 
is  made  to  cater  to  the  lusts  and  appetites  and  passions. 

The  alphabetic  qualities  in  men  are  right  enough  ; 
but  the  lives  which  they  spell  out  with  those  alpha- 
betic qualities,  the  habits  which  they  form  from  them, 
the  characters  which  result  from  them,  are  far  from 
right.  When  we  come  to  see  what  men  produce  with 
the  right  faculties  with  which  they  were  endowed  by 
God,  we  cannot  but  pronounce  them  to  be  sinful.  And 
the  sinfulness  is  all  the  more  glaring  because  with  right 
things  men  build  wrong  structures,  because  with  right 
fundamental  elements  they  evolve  characters  which  will 
never  fit  them  for  their  higher  usefulness  and  happiness 
here,  and  still  less  for  the  spiritual  life,  and  for  com- 
munion with  God,  hereafter. 

9* 


202 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


DIFFICULTY  OF  RIGHT  LIVING. 

I  do  not  consider  it  to  be  an  easy  thing  to  live  right. 
I  look  upon  life  as  I  look  upon  a  child.  If  I  did  not 
believe  in  the  all-bathing  atmosphere  of  Providence 
and  love,  I  could  not  wish  to  see  another  child  born 
into  the  world,  so  great  is  the  peril,  and  so  wonderful, 
beyond  all  ordinary  calculation,  is  the  work  that  is 
going  on.  We  hear  the  clanking  of  the  loom,  and  we 
see  the  fabric  that  is  woven  and  rolled  upon  the  beam ; 
but  we  do  not  see  the  pattern  that  is  woven  in  it.  We 
take  a  hand  that  is  empty  of  skill,  and  we  teach  skill 
to  that  hand.  We  take  a  foot  that  is  void  of  knowl- 
edge, and  we  teach  that  foot  knowledge.  A  child  has 
no  acquaintance  with  qualities,  and  we  teach  him  how 
to  distinguish  qualities.  He  is  ignorant  of  construc- 
tion, and  we  teach  him  how  to  construct.  He  goes  on 
learning  human  nature,  his  own  nature,  his  physical 
nature,  with  his  appetites  and  passions,  every  one  of 
which  needs  to  have  a  special  drill  and  education. 

There  are  some  twenty  or  thirty  tendencies  in  the 
nature  of  a  man  ;  and  each  one  of  them  is  to  be  devel- 
oped in  accordance  with  right  judgments ;  and  he  is  to 
carry  them  in  such  equilibrium  and  proportions  that 
through  all  his  life  there  shall  be  right  gradations  of 
light  and  shadow.  They  are  to  be  so  controlled  and 
managed  that  there  shall  be  symmetry  of  form  and  true 
balance. 

Who  can  drive  one  fiery  horse  with  ease  ?  To  drive 
two  is  harder  still.  But,  if  fifteen  or  twenty  are  in  a 
string,  what  man's  hand  is  skillful  enough  or  strong 
enough  to  hold  the  reins,  and  keep  them  exactly  to 
their  paces  ? 


SINS  AND  SINFULNESS. 


203 


Here  is  a  man,  born  of  woman,  surrounded  by  ad- 
verse influences,  biased,  stimulated  at  times,  depressed 
at  other  times,  paralyzed  with  fear,  intoxicated  by  in- 
flamed feelings ;  and  yet,  the  physical,  the  social,  and 
the  moral  elements  which  operate  upon  him,  he,  as  a 
creature  of  study,  of  business,  or  of  public  life,  is  to  so 
adjust  as  to  carry  every  part  of  himself  in  rectitude  and 
in  proportion.  Things  that  are  right  enough  in  them- 
selves are  wrong  oftentimes  by  their  combinations,  by 
excess  or  lack,  by  the  uses  to  which  they  are  put,  by 
want  of  right  composition  or  gradation.  So  that  life  is 
a  thousand  times  more  imperfect  even  than  men  think ; 
so  that  the  question  of  perfection  is  almost  a  question 
to  make  men  laugh ;  so  that  the  idea  of  sinlessness  and 
true  purity  and  absolute  rectitude  is  absurd.  And  the 
more  a  man  knows  what  powers  are  in  him,  how  these 
powers  are  to  be  co-ordinated,  and  how  they  are  all  to 
be  made  to  point  towards  the  one  Divine  element  of 
love ;  the  more  he  comes  to  understand  that  he  is  a 
creature  of  two  worlds,  who  is  to  look  across  this  world 
to  the  other,  and  so  order  everything  here  that  it  shall 
land  him  there,  —  the  more  does  he  realize  how  vast  the 
problem  of  life  is.  There  is  no  other  problem  like  it. 
There  is  no  other  problem  that  involves  so  much  risk. 
There  is  no  other  problem  the  pressure  for  the  solution 
of  which  is  so  intense.  The  question  of  furnishing  a 
character  for  eternity  and  for  companionship  with  God 
is  one  which  transcends  every  other. 

THE  SCIENTIFIC  CONFIRMATION  OF  BIBLE  DOCTRINE. 

Now,  it  is  in  connection  with  this  problem  or  ques- 
don  that  there  comes  up  the  scientific  rebound  which 


204 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


is  beginning  to  teach  so  much  about  the  incarceration 
or  incarnation  of  the  spirit  in  the  body.  It  is  in  this 
connection  that  we  are  learning  more  about  the  subject 
of  heredity,  or  the  transmission  of  qualities  to  our- 
selves from  our  ancestors,  and  of  the  effect  of  circum- 
stances, of  blood,  of  laws,  and  of  institutions  on  the 
passions,  the  appetites,  and  the  various  elements  of  the 
mind.  All  these  powerful  external  agents  are  coming 
in,  and  are  producing  a  necessity  for  knowledge  in 
scientific  directions  on  the  part  of  those  who  are  to 
preach  to  the  coming  generations, — a  knowledge  which 
will  enable  them  to  meet  the  assertions  or  the  skepti- 
cism of  those  who  are  bringing  in  new  conditions  of 
mental  philosophy. 

I  have  from  early  life  followed  closely  the  schools 
of  science,  and  gathered  such  knowledge  as  I  could  on 
every  side  in  respect  to  the  actual  condition  of  man,  — 
with  this  addition  :  that  I  have,  unlike  the  scientists, 
taken  such  material  facts  as  have  been  evolved,  and 
illuminated  them  by  the  light  of  Divine  revelation,  and 
looked  at  them  from  a  higher  standpoint.  And  I  feel 
that  in  the  times  which  are  to  come  no  man  can  be  a 
faithful  preacher  to  human  nature,  no  man  can  dis- 
criminatingly preach  of  man's  sins  and  sinfulness,  who 
does  not  take  into  consideration  the  developments  which 
are  being  made,  and  which  are  to  be  made ;  and  I  feel 
sure  that  there  is  nothing  which  will  be  found  so  ad- 
mirably connected  with  science,  and  so  parallel  with  it 
everywhere,  as  the  Gospels  of  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ.  I 
think  it  will  be  discovered,  when  the  best  knowledges 
have  been  derived  from  the  schools  of  science,  that 
Jesus  Christ  was  the  greatest  scientist  of  the  world's 


SINS  AND  SINFULNESS. 


205 


history ;  not  in  respect  to  lower  forms  of  matter,  but 
in  respect  to  mind,  which  is  unquestionably  the  very 
topmost  thing  in  this  creation  of  God  upon  the  earth. 
I  do  not  fear  that  science  will  sweep  away  any  funda- 
mental doctrine.  On  the  other  hand,  I  believe  that 
all  fundamental  doctrines  will  be  confirmed  by  science, 
and  that  by  reason  of  the  light  which  science  throws 
upon  them  they  will  shine  out  more  strongly  than 
ever  before. 

INDIVIDUAL  REPENTANCE. 

I  have  spoken  of  Christ's  method.  He  preached  re- 
pentance everywhere,  as  John  had  preached  it  before 
him.  And  you  will  take  notice  how  substantially  these 
two  preachers  of  repentance  were  alike.  You  will  take 
notice  also, that  when  men  came  to  them  asking,  "What 
shall  we  do  ? "  the  answer  was  very  different  from  that 
which  we  are  prone  to  give.  One  answer  was  given 
to  the  soldiers,  and  another  answer  was  given  to  the 
Pharisees.  In  each  case  the  answer  was  adapted  to  the 
mind  of  the  inquirer.  The  modern  way,  in  preaching 
the  doctrine  of  man's  sinfulness,  is  to  make  an  attempt 
to  create  an  atmosphere  in  which  all  men  shall  feel  a 
sort  of  down-pressing  danger  in  consequence  of  univer- 
sal and  distributive  guilt.  When  we  get  men  into  an 
intense  state  of  moral  alarm,  we  point  them,  as  the  say- 
ing is,  to  the  great  Eefuge.  But  that  was  not  the  way 
with  our  Saviour.  He  sought  to  make  all  men  discon- 
tented with  their  present  state ;  he  aroused  in  them  a 
sense  of  its  incompleteness  and  of  its  dangerousness ; 
he  preached  repentance  :  but  when  the  question  came 
up,  "What  is  repentance      it  was  made  personal  to 


206 


LECTURES  ON  PHEACHING. 


each.  He  developed  the  new  life  on  the  basis  of  the 
old  life;  and  it  was  something  special  in  each  par- 
ticular person.  A  miser  cannot  repent  as  a  spendthrift 
can.  They  are  both  inconsiderate  and  selfish,  but  the 
process  of  repentance  with  one  is  different  from  what  it 
is  with  the  other. 

Generics  never  take  hold  of  men.  It  is  specifics  that 
take  hold  of  them.  If  you  say  to  a  man,  "  You  are  a 
sly  old  fellow,"  he  shrugs  his  shoulders  and  does  not 
care ;  but  if  you  point  him  to  the  fact  that  you  saw 
him  prying  open  your  letter  and  reading  it,  he  is  very 
much  ashamed.  If  you  say  to  a  man,  "  I  guess  you  are 
not  very  particular  about  how  you  get  your  money," 
he  smiles,  and  rather  thinks  that,  on  the  whole,  it 
is  not  as  bad  as  it  might  be  ;  but  if  you  say  to  him, 
bluntly,  You  stole,  and  I  can  convict  you  of  it,"  and 
refer  him  to  the  circumstances,  that  touches  him.  A 
specific  charge  is  oftentimes  effectual  where  a  generic 
one  is  not. 

A  bunch  of  needles  put  together  is  as  blunt  as  a 
board;  but  if  you  take  each  one  out,  and  use  it  by 
itself,  it  is  sharp,  and  pierces  as  all  of  them  together 
will  not. 

If  men  are  called  to  repentance  in  a  bunch,  they  will 
be  very  apt  to  repent  in  a  bunch,  and  their  repentance 
will  be  very  superficial  in  every  way ;  but  if  they  are 
called  to  repent  individually,  they  will  repent,  if  at  all, 
individually,  and  their  repentance  will  run  along  the 
line  of  facts  related  to  their  conduct  and  state. 

You  cannot  repent  of  Adam's  sin  ;  you  cannot  repent 
of  that  part  of  your  nature  in  whose  creation  you  had 
no  part ;  but  you  can  repent  of  that  which  you  are  in 


SINS  AND  sinfulNJ:ss. 


207 


your  lower,  your  middle/ and  your  higher  nature  ;  you 
can  repent  of  your  delinquencies,  negative  and  positive  ; 
you  can  repent  of  your  wrong-doing ;  you  can  repent 
of  the  unspirituality  of  your  whole  life.  Every  man  can 
take  a  measure  of  himself. 

Now,  there  is  every  reason  to  believe  that  when  the 
Master  preached  to  the  harlot,  the  harlot  had  her  own 
special  repentance ;  and  that  when  he  preached  to  the 
thief,  the  thief  had  his  own  special  repentance.  Ee- 
pentance  was  the  spirit  of  God  wrestling  in  each  indi- 
vidual's heart  according  to  tlie  nature,  the  character, 
and  the  development  of  that  heart. 

HOPEFULNESS  OF  CHRIST'S  PREACHING. 

Clirist  taught  that  all  men  were  in  need  of  regenera- 
tion,—  of  the  new  birth.  Undoubtedly  he  taught  re- 
pentance in  such  a  way  that  it  was  believed  to  be  an 
instantaneous  work ;  or,  that  it  was  so  connected  with 
the  lower  human  will  that  when  a  man  was  going 
wrong  he  could  stop  and  go  right.  He  undoubtedly 
insisted  upon  it  that  it  was  a  thing  which  was  to  take 
place  at  once.  He  said  to  the  thief,  Steal  no  more  "  ; 
to  the  lecherous,  licentious  man,  "Be  lecherous  and 
licentious  no  more  "  ;  to  the  cruel  man,  "  Cease  your 
cruelty  "  ;  to  the  drunkard,  "  Drink  no  more  "  ;  to  the 
godless  man,  "Think  of  God,  and  reverence  him." 
Eepentance,  according  to  his  teaching,  was  an  instan- 
taneous work  in  this  sense :  that  there  was  a  point  of 
time  in  which  there  was  a  change  from  the  design  of 
wrong-doing  to  the  design  of  right-doing. 

He  preached,  also,  that  the  Divine  power  was  in- 
dispensable to  this  change ;  but  he  preached  it  as  a 


208 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


matter  of  hope,  of  inspiration,  and  of  courage  to  men. 
He  taught  that  men  were  in  great  need  of  this  Divine 
power ;  but  he  represented  it  to  be  to  them  what  a  sur- 
geon is  to  a  wounded  man.  If  your  leg  is  broken,  you 
cannot  set  it ;  if  an  artery  is  severed,  you  cannot  stanch 
the  blood  ;  and  you  cannot  live  unless  the  surgeon  comes. 
He  is  a  benefactor  and  a  helper.  And  when  Christ 
taught  the  necessity  of  the  dependence  of  men  upon 
God,  he  preached  so  as  to  stimulate  men  in  the  direc- 
tion of  their  necessity  for  the  Divine.  The  effect  of  his 
preaching  was  to  tear  up  self-conceit  by  the  roots.  It 
was  to  give  man  a  sense  of  his  power  to  exalt  himself 
by  the  aid  of  the  Spirit.  It  was  to  teach  him  where 
the  remedy  was,  and  that  he  could  have  it  if  he  wanted 
it.  The  Spirit  is  always  ready  ;  and  the  drift  of  Christ's 
teaching  was  that  men  needed  a  new  birth,  and  that, 
needing  a  new  birth,  they  needed  the  Divine  Spirit ; 
and  that  the  Divine  Spirit  was  waiting  to  be  gracious  to 
them.  It  was  always  on  the  side  of  hope  and  effort, 
and  not  on  the  side  of  casting  anchor  and  waiting,  that 
Christ  taught.  From  his  teaching  men  would  naturally 
deduce  the  fact  of  their  absolute  need  of  higher  succor 
than  their  own  ;  but  they  would  also  come  to  this 
through  knowledge  of  sorrow  for  special  sins,  and  re- 
pentance of  them,  and  thus  be  encouraged  to  seek  the 
higher  help  and  really  help  themselves. 

THE  GERMINANT  VALUE  OF  MORALITY. 

Now,  your  preaching  of  sinfulness  should  never  take 
away  from  men  a  sense  of  the  value  of  morality.  It 
should  modify  their  extravagant  ideas  of  its  value ;  but 
to  tell  a  man  that  nothing  is  good  unless  it  is  the  fruit 


SINS  AND  SINFULNESS. 


209 


of  an  after-converted  state,  is  to  subvert  the  very  ele- 
ments on  which  you  build,  and  the  very  instincts  to 
which  you  appeal.  The  whole  Bible,  from  beginning  to 
end,  takes  it  for  granted  that  there  are  in  men  separate 
notions  of  truth,  of  honor,  of  justice,  of  rectitude,  by 
which  they  are  to  compare,  to  judge,  and  to  accept; 
and  if  you  take  away  from  men  the  thought  that  in 
morality  is  found  the  basis  on  which  you  can  build 
the  higher  life,  you  destroy  their  courage  and  paralyze 
their  effort. 

Men  say,  "  Is  not  morality  good  ? "  I  say  it  is  good. 
"  Is  it  enough  ? "    No  ;  no  ! 

When  the  vine  first  throws  out  leaves  in  spring  they 
are  great,  broad  leaves  ;  and  men  say,  "There,  those 
are  fine  leaves ;  do  you  tell  me  that  they  are  good  for 
nothing  ?  "  No,  I  do  not  tell  you  any  such  thing ;  but  I 
say  that  it  will  be  a  good  while  before  you  will  make  any 
wine  out  of  them.  What  are  leaves  good  for  ?  Why, 
to  make  blossoms.  What  are  blossoms  good  for  but  to 
smell  good  ?  They  are  good  for  evolving  the  final  form 
of  fruit.  Leaves  and  blossoms  are  relatively  good,  but 
their  purpose  is  not  fulfilled  until  they  have  developed 
something  better. 

Now,  morality  is  a  seed  which  is  relative  to  some- 
thing higher,  which  it  is  to  produce.  It  is  that  out  of 
which  is  to  grow  the  better  states  of  men.  It  should 
therefore  be  precious  in  men's  sight.  I  would  not  say 
to  young  men  in  my  parish,  It  does  not  matter 
whether  you  are  good  or  bad,  truthful  or  untruthful, 
just  or  unjust,  pure  or  impure.  On  the  contrary,  I 
say.  Your  morality  is  good  so  far  as  it  goes.  I  say  to 
you,  Love  God  in  such  a  way  that  your  love  shall  in- 

N 


210 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


flame  your  whole  spiritual  nature ;  but  if  you  will  not 
rise  to  that,  the  highest  and  truest  conception  of  man- 
hood, then  at  least  do  the  next  thing  below  that.  If 
you  will  not  do  that,  I  beseech  of  you,  do  right  things 
even  from  selfish  motives.  It  is  better  to  do  right 
things  from  feelings  of  personal  interest  than  to  do 
wrong  things.  When  a  man  begins  on  this  ground, 
he  begins,  although  the  beginning  is  but  as  a  grain  of 
mustard-seed.  It  is  not  enough  to  end  with,  but  it  is 
enough  to  begin  with.  A  man  who  begins  at  the  lower 
foundations  of  motive  is  in  a  situation  such  that  you 
can  inspire  him  and  lift  him  higher  and  higher.  In 
dealing  practically  with  men  you  are  obliged  to  act  on 
that  principle  or  method  of  dealing  with  him.  You 
can  never,  by  revival  after  revival,  no  matter  how 
powerful  it  may  be,  take  a  coarse,  rude  nature,  whose 
inward  states  and  outward  habits  are  those  of  sin  and 
sinfulness,  and  bring  him  at  once  into  a  condition  of 
high  spiritual  vision  and  of  glorious  Christian  develop- 
ment. What  can  you  do  ?  You  can  transform  his  pur- 
poses at  once ;  you  can  set  them  on  inward  elements 
of  character ;  but  a  whole  life's  work  is  to  be  employed 
to  carry  that  character  up,  little  by  little,  and  little  by 
little. 

Men  are  like  vagabond  boys  in  the  street.  They  are 
lying,  thieving,  dirty,  ragged,  uncombed  rascals  ;  and 
they  who  love  them  go  out  after  them  ;  and  going  out 
after  them,  they  never  take  the  children  that  are  rosy, 
sweet-faced  and  cherry-lipped,  well  taken  care  of  at 
home.  They  may  love  these  most ;  but  they  are  after 
the  sinful ;  and  they  take  the  little  ragamuffins  and 
bring  them  into  the  reformatory  house,  and  wash  their 


SINS  AND  SINFULNESS. 


211 


skin,  and  take  off  their  rags,  and  clothe  them  aright, 
and  persuade  them,  in  one  way  and  another,  to  submit 
themselves  to  the  necessary  restraint,  and  abide  in  the 
asylum,  and  become  scholars,  until  at  last,  after  weeks 
and  months  of  instruction  and  drill,  and  after  various 
experiences  under  the  pressure  of  moral  influences,  the 
boy  says,  "  I  am  going  to  make  a  man  of  myself" 
When  he  says  this,  so  far  as  his  determination  is  con- 
cerned he  is  converted.  He  has  made  up  his  mind  to 
live  a  different  life  ;  but  the  object  which  he  has  before 
him  is  not  yet  accomplished. 

Now,  transfer  that  idea  to  the  case  of  a  man  in  a 
congregation.  This  man  is  converted.  He  has  been 
living  on  a  lower  plane  of  moralities,  and  l^e  makes  up 
his  mind  that  he  will  rise  to  a  higher  plane  ;  but  has 
he  reached  that  higher  plane  ?  Has  he  developed  in 
himself  the  spiritual  knowledge  tow^ards  which  he  as- 
pires ?  Has  he  wrought  out  the  corresponding  ele- 
ments, social  and  moral,  which  belong  to  true  manhood  ? 
No,  but  he  has  made  a  start  for  it.  He  has  laid  the 
foundation  of  the  building,  and  it  will  rise  gradually, 
through  various  stages  of  evolution  and  care,  until  the 
last  perfect  form  is  attained. 

If  you  preach  to  rude  congregations  you  must  do  as 
missionaries  do.  When  missionaries  come  home  they 
generally  have  a  less  opinion  of  theology  and  a  greater 
opinion  of  the  Bible  than  almost  any  other  class.  They 
find  in  missionary  life  how  wonderful  are  the  adapta- 
tions of  Scripture  to  the  treatment  of  men  in  lower 
conditions.  They  find  that  there  is  nothing  that  re- 
quires so  much  patience,  so  much  charity,  and  so  much 
waiting,  as  human  nature  in  its  primitive  states.  They 


212 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


find  tliat  nothing  is  slower  in  unfolding  than  undevel- 
oped men.  Men  are  so  extremely  low,  so  very  imper- 
fect, so  thoroughly  sinful,  that  when  they  are  preached 
to,  and  they  turn  about  and  begin  to  do  right,  it  will 
be  at  a  point  very  far  down  in  the  scale  ;  and  it  is 
only  step  by  step,  gradually,  that  the  Divine  Spirit 
can  be  developed  in  them.  It  is  long  afterwards  that 
they  reach  the  higher  life.  After  death  they  will  be 
perfected,  but  not  before. 

OPPOSING   DANGERS  OF  GENERIC  PREACHING. 

/      Let  me  say  one  more  thing  in  this  direction,  namely : 
i   that  in  preaching  the  doctrine  of  sinfulness  to  men 
!    there  is  danger  of  overaction.    It  works  in  two  ways ; 
producing  discouragement  on  the  one  side,  and  pre- 
sumption on  the  other. 

Have  you  never  heard  men  say,  in  a  rallying,  ban- 
tering manner,  0,  well,  of  course  I  did  wrong ;  but 
you  know  it  is  human  to  err.  To  be  sure,  what  I  did 
was  wrong ;  but  all  men  are  sinners,  and  I  am  one  of 
them  "  ?  There  springs  up  from  this  preaching  a  sort 
of  impression  in  the  mind  that  a  man  is  a  sinner  any- 
how. "  Yes,"  they  say,  of  course  he  is,  everybody  is, 
a  sinner.  We  are  all  going  along  together.  We  keep 
step  one  with  another."  Such  a  generic  method  of 
presenting  the  doctrine  of  sinfulness  tends  to  destroy 
conscience  in  men,  and  they  seem  to  think  that  when 
they  sin  they  are  walking  in  accordance  with  the  consti- 
tution of  things,  and  that  whatever  may  be  the  mischiefs 
resulting  from  their  action  they  are  no  more  responsible 
for  them  than  a  sour-apple  tree  is  for  having  sour  apples, 
or  than  a  thorn-tree  is  for  having  thorns.    If  you  con- 


SINS  AND  SINFULNESS. 


213 


tinue  preaching, "  All  men  are  sinful,  all  men  are  sinful, 
ALL  MEN  ARE  SINFUL,  0,  ALL  MEN  AEE  SINFUL,'* 
they  will  all  of  them  justify  your  opinion,  but  not  one 
of  them  will  feel  sinful  because  he  lives  as  he  does, 
any  more  than  I  feel  so  because  my  hair  was  naturally 
brown,  or  than  you  do  because  your  hair  was  naturally 
black. 

Yet,  as  I  shall  show  at  another  time,  this  generic 
doctrine  of  universal  sinfulness  has  its  place,  and  is  a 
power,  in  the  active  work  of  the  ministry ;  but  after 
all,  you  must  specialize.  Otherwise  men  will  go  to  one 
or  the  other  extreme,  —  that  of  presumption  or  that 
of  discouragement.  Sensitive  natures  will  brood  the 
matter  inwardly,  and  will  feel  such  a  sensibility  to  sin, 
and  will  have  such  a  sense  of  their  own  vileness,  as 
shall  take  away  from  them  all  spring  and  all  hope,  and 
really  leave  the  mind  almost  paralyzed.  I  have  heard 
of  not  a  few  cases  of  this  kind.  I  have  known  of  per- 
sons (for  instance,  women)  who,  without  any  sense  of 
special  sinning,  were  made  unhappy  and  wellnigh  in- 
sane from  a  general  impression  of  their  own  sinfulness. 
I  have  one  in  my  mind  now. 

There  are  women  Avho  are  martyrs.  If  there  are 
what  may  be  called  Protestant  Saints,  I  think  they  are 
the  women  who  forbear  a  loving  wifehood,  and  go 
into  a  sister's  family  to  be  a  mother  to  children  that 
they  have  not  themselves  borne,  to  take  care  of  them, 
and  to  labor  for  them,  loving  them  and  nourishing 
them  and  sacrificing  self  for  them,  asking  no  name  and 
no  reward  outside.  And  yet,  I  have  known  women  of 
that  sort  who  had  such  a  withering  sense  of  their  un- 
worthiness  that  they  hardly  dared  to  raise  their  eyes 


214 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


to  God  because  they  felt  so  sinful,  and  had  such  an  im^ 
pression  that  their  life  was  a  waste.  Sometimes  under 
such  circumstances  they  are  even  demented  with  this 
intense  conviction  of  sinfulness.  There  are  cases  in 
which  persons  have  such  a  sense  of  their  own  inherent 
wickedness,  and  of  the  wickedness  of  every  action 
which  springs  from  the  qualities  of  their  nature,  that 
their  very  aspiration  is  paralyzed.  And  it  is  an  awful 
perversion  of  the  truth  where  it  is  preached  so  as  to 
produce  such  results.  Phenomena  like  these  are,  I 
think,  among  the  most  piteous  exhibitions  that  the 
world  can  look  upon. 

You  must  therefore  beware  of  preaching  generics  in 
one  way,  so  as  to  make  men  callous  and  presumptuous, 
and,  in  another  way,  so  as  to  make  them  oversensitive, 
and  drive  them  into  despair. 

You  are  so  to  discriminate  in  preaching  that  every 
person  shall  have  his  own  character,  his  own  tenden- 
cies, his  own  peculiarities  specialized  to  him.  You  are 
to  preach  so  that  every  man  shall,  as  it  were,  be  called 
by  name  ;  so  that  his  attention  shall  be  drawn  to  his 
own  special  life-work ;  so  that  he  shall  be  led  to  root 
up  all  the  poisonous  weeds,  and  prune  all  the  right 
plants  or  tendencies  in  his  nature;  so  that  he  shall  aim 
at  the  full  development  and  symmetrizing  of  his  whole 
character  in  the  direction  of  hopefulness,  of  trust,  of 
aspiration,  and  of  a  sense  of  the  Divine  power ;  so  that 
he  can  work  out  his  own  salvation,  because  it  is  God 
that  is  w^orking  in  him,  to  will  and  to  do  of  his  good 
pleasure. 


I  As  to  the  question  whether  it  is  best  to  preach  sins 
br  sinfulness,  \  say,  Both,  —  sinfulness  in  a  measure. 


SINS  AND  SINFULNESS. 


215 


but  sins  continually,  sins  all  the  time,  so  far  as  you 
take  that  side  in  your  preaching.  Sinfulness  is  generic  ; 
sins  are  specific  ;  and  although  every  man  needs  to 
know  that  his  whole  nature  is  low  and  requires  Divine 
inspiration  and  re-birth,  yet,  that  which  will  touch 
men  most  sensibly,  and  arouse  them  most  effectually, 
and  bring  them  to  a  new  life  most  certainly,  is  that 
which  is  specific. 

SPECIFICATION  OF  CHARACTERS. 

The  next  question,  which  I  shall  not  more  than 
mention  this  afternoon,  is  this :  not,  What  is  sinful  ? 
but,  What  are  the  modes  by  which  you  can  make  men 
conscious  of  sinfulness  ?  For  yourselves,  study  the 
doctrine  of  sin  in  all  its  ramifications ;  but  when 
you  come  to  preach,  the  distinctive  thought  with  you 
should  be,  "  I  know  that  men  are  sinful ;  but  they 
do  not  feel  it :  how  shall  I  make  them  understand 
it?" 

Here  is  a  man  that  sits  and  smiles  under  your 
preaching  with  the  serenest  contentment  in  regard  to 
himself  You  say  that  Man  is  dejiraved,  —  yes,  if  you 
please,  totally  depraved ;  you  say  much  (I  care  not  how 
much)  that  is  condemnatory  of  Man  ;  and  yet  he  is 
smiling  and  contented  and  happy.  How  are  you  to 
reach  that  particular  man  with  such  a  sense  of  sin  as 
to  bring  him  down  ? 

Here  sits  another  man  in  the  congregation,  and  hears 
you  preach  on  the  subject  of  sin  ;  and  he  is  no  more 
affiected  than  the  rocks  on  Mount  Sinai  were  when  the 
law  was  given  to  Moses.  His  heart  is  as  cold  as  it  can 
be ;  and  he  says,  "  Our  miixister  is  doing  that  thing 


216 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


very  well  to-day,  —  very  well''  How  are  you  going  to 
assail  that  man  in  such  a  way  as  to  bring  a  moral  con- 
sciousness of  personal  sin  home  to  him  ?  Must  you 
wait  for  that  mysterious  influence  of  the  spirit  which 
comes  with  revivals,  and  which  is  likened  to  the  wind, 
which  "bloweth  where  it  listeth,"  so  that  you  "can- 
not tell  whence  it  cometh,  and  whither  it  goeth  "  ?  Is 
there  to  be  a  second  moral  deluge  which  shall  come 
without  any  instrumentality  on  your  part  ?  Is  there 
not  a  way  in  which  you  can  preach  sin  so  that  a  man 
hearing  you  shall  say,  "  I  am  a  sinner,  not  on  account 
of  my  undivided  dividend  of  Adam,  but  on  account  of 
my  special  disposition  and  life"  ? 

There  are  others  who  are  equally  devoid  of  feeling. 
They  live  in  the  sweet  amenities  of  life.  They  are  too 
amiable  and  gentle  and  polite  to  deny  anything  that 
you  say  from  the  pulpit.  No  matter  what  you  say, 
they  smile.  If  you  say  to  them,  "You  are  a  great 
sinner,"  they  say,  "  Yes,  I  know  I  am."  "  It  is  your 
duty  to  repent."  "  Certainly,  certainly."  "  Don't  you 
think  the  time  has  come  when  you  should  begin  ? " 
"  I  do." 

It  is  with  men  as  the  Western  Methodist  minister 
said  it  was  with  grain.  Said  he,  "  Grain  that  leans 
away  from  me  I  can  cut :  it  is  grain  that  leans  toward 
me  which  the  sickle  slips  over,  and  which  I  cannot 
cut." 

Now,  in  going  out  into  your  congregations,  your 
work  will  be  to  specialize,  not  simply  single  sins  nor 
single  faculties,  but  characters.  Your  work  will  be 
like  that  of  an  engineer,  who  must  learn  general 
principles,  but  who,  when  he  goes  into  the  field  to 


SINS  AND  SINFULNESS. 


217 


survey,  to  build,  or  to  bombard,  must  substitute,  for 
his  foregoing  education  in  generics,  practice  in  spe- 
cialties. 

On  the  true  method  of  doing  that  work  I  shall,  by 
the  help  of  God,  attempt  to  throw  some  light  in  a 
future  lecture. 


TOL.  III. 


10 


IX. 


THE  SENSE  OF  PERSONAL  SIK 

March  11,  1874. 

HIS  afternoon  I  am  to  speak  to  you  as 
to  the  best  procedure  in  your  ministry  by 
which  to  inspire  men  with  a  sense  of  their 
personal  sinfuhiess. 

CONVICTION,  TO  CAREY  ASPIRATION. 

Why  is  it  necessary  to  inspire  such  a  feeling  ?  For 
what  purpose  is  it  to  be  done  ?  It  is  only  that  your 
people  may  be  incited  to  reformation.  The  use  of 
preaching  to  men  the  doQtrine  of  sin  is  that  they  may 
be  led  away  from  sin.  The  test  of  right  preaching  on 
this  subject  is  not  its  agreement  with  any  preconceived 
theory :  it  is  its  agreement  with  the  fundamental  sym- 
pathies and  laws  of  the  human  soul,  manifesting  itself 
in  the  renunciation  of  sins,  or  in  an  effort  to  renounce 
them,  and  in  the  betaking  of  one's  self  to  the  higher 
life.  I  say  that  it  were  worse  than  cruel  to  preach  to 
men  their  lost  condition,  and  their  guiltiness,  and  their 
corruption  before  God,  if  that  were  all. 

Human  life  itself  sets  us  the  example.  If  men  walk 
the  street  heedlessly,  thrusting  themselves  against  little 


THE  SENSE  OF  PERSONAL  SIN. 


219 


children  or  unprotected  women,  we  rebuke  them,  be- 
cause their  rudeness  can  be  corrected  and  should  be 
corrected  ;  but  who  ever  rebukes  a  man  with  a  shrunk- 
en leg  for  halting  and  causing  inconvenience  in  the 
street  ?  By  the  consent  of  all  mankind,  we  are  silent 
on  that  subject. 

If  a  man  be  found  in  anger,  or  in  any  other  unwor- 
thy feeling,  making  up  hideous  faces  at  persons,  we  re- 
buke him  because  he  is  doing  that  which  is  improper, 
and  because  it  can  be  changed ;  but  if  a  man  be  para- 
lyzed, or  if  he  were  born  with  a  hideously  ugly  face 
which  he  is  obliged  to  carry  all  his  life,  we  never  say 
anything  about  that,  because  he  cannot  correct  it. 

It  is  the  correctableness  of  sinful  conduct  and  life 
that  gives  the  whole  reason  for  dwelling  upon  this  sub- 
ject. Therefore,  the  sense  of  sin  inspired  in  men  is 
only  the  reverse,  and  should  be  the  concomitant,  of  a 
sense  of  aspiration.  It  is  our  business  so  to  discourse 
to  our  people  that  they  shall  feel  not  only  a  sense  of 
wrong  and  wrong-doing,  but  a  corresponding  sense  of 
right  and  right-doing ;  it  is  our  business  to  preach  to 
them  so  as  that  out  of  our  preaching  shall  come  that 
influence  which  shall  impel  them  in  the  right  direction 
from  the  wrong  direction. 

EXPERIENCE  THE  TRUE  TEXT  TO  PREACH  FROM. 

This  is  the  fundamental  idea  on  which  I  construct 
my  remarks  to  you  this  afternoon ;  and  in  the  first 
place  I  assert,  that  it  is  comparatively  useless,  that  fre- 
quently it  is  worse  than  useless,  to  preach  to  men  of 
their  sins  in  no  other  way  than  by  a  retinue  of  texts, 
and  by  statements  of  the  authority  of  the  Word  of 


220 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


God ;  because  that  part  of  God's  Word  which  is  au- 
thoritative is  that  which  lives  consciously  in  us.  You 
must  translate  into  men's  actual  experience  that  which 
is  taught  by  letter  in  the  Word  of  God  before  you  can 
appeal  to  it  and  make  them  feel  that  they  have  violated 
it.  For  a  book  is  a  book,  and  but  a  book.  If  it  be  a 
book  that  declares  the  Divine  will  and  the  Divine 
judgment,  far  be  it  from  me  to  say  that  there  is  no  use 
in  employing  it ;  but  I  declare  that  it  is  auxiliary,  that 
it  is  interpretative.  The  work  must  first  be  developed 
in  a  man's  own  understanding  and  in  his  moral  con- 
sciousness ;  and  then  his  experience  and  sensibility 
must  be  corroborated  by  the  declarations  of  the  Word 
of  God;  but  mere  textual  preaching,  a  mere  array  of 
texts  so  long  that  it  looks  like  a  sinner's  funeral  proces- 
sion, will  not  convict  men.  It  will  teach  them  what 
the  Bible  says  ;  but  what  we  want  is  to  make  them 
feel 

Generic  preaching  lies  under  precisely  the  same  con- 
ditions. As  all  rivers  empty  into  the  ocean,  so  all 
specifics  will  first  or  last  empty  into  generics.  All 
facts  and  all  personal  instances  of  special  dispositions 
and  acts  in  the  individual  are  materials  which  every 
man,  if  he  has  any  philosophical  tendency,  finally  gen- 
eralizes, and  forms  into  some  sense  of  disposition ;  but 
to  preach  the  generic  first  makes  it  very  difficult  for 
men  to  specialize,  whereas  to  preach  the  specific  first 
will  by  and  by  lead  men  of  themselves  to  gener- 
alize. 

Therefore  it  is  that  the  true  preaching  of  sinfulness 
is  the  preaching  of  individual  and  personal  sins.  In 
order  to  preach  truly,  it  is  far  better  that  you  should 


THE  SENSE  OF  PERSONAL  SIN. 


221 


prepare  your  way,  not  by  any  abstract  statement  of 
law  or  rule  of  conduct,  but,  as  far  as  possible,  by  con- 
crete statements. 

You  never  could  make  a  person  who  was  born  in  a 
village,  who  had  seen  nothing  of  pictures,  who,  finding 
in  himself  a  blind  impulse  to  paint,  had  worked  his 
way  up  so  far  as  to  paint  a  lion-sign  for  a  tavern,  and 
who  was  praised  for  his  skill  by  all  his  neighbors, — 
you  never  could  make  such  a  person  believe  that  he 
was  not  an  artist.  All  the  abstract  arguments  in  the 
world  would  not  convince  him  of  this ;  but  bring  a 
genuine  painting  from  out  of  the  French  school,  of  a 
lion  in  an  African  desert,  and  set  it  down  in  his  shop 
by  the  side  of  his  crude  banner-picture,  and  go  away 
without  saying  a  word,  and  the  man  coming  in  of  a  sud- 
den, and  looking  at  the  one  and  at  the  other,  will  step 
back,  and  say,  "  Ass  !  I  thought  that  picture  of  mine 
was  a  lion,  but  I  have  found  out  that  I  am  an  ass, — 
that  is  all.  I  will  never  paint  another  picture."  He 
has  been  resisting  statements  of  his  well-meaning 
friends  to  the  effect  that  there  was  not  very  much 
artistic  skill  displayed  in  his  picture,  and  has  looked 
upon  them  as  attempting  to  repress  genius,"  and  he 
w^ould  not  believe  anything  that  they  said  about  it ; 
but  the  moment  there  is  put  before  him  a  real  thing, 
an  ideal  picture,  he  lays  aside  his  notion  that  he  is  an 
artist,  and  now  all  the  world  could  not  produce  the  op- 
posite impression  in  his  mind.  What  he  needs  now  is  to 
be  buoyed  up,  and  encouraged  to  think  that,  with  self- 
denial  and  perseverance,  in  time  he  can  attain  even  to 
that  excellence  which  he  sees  exhibited  in  the  picture 
which  throws  his  own  work  so  entirely  in  the  shada 


222 


LECTURE^  ON  l^REACHmd. 


Now,  in  simply  preaching  to  men  that  they  are  self- 
ish, that  they  are  proud,  that  they  are  vain,  and  that 
they  are  without  holiness,  you  cannot  produce  much 
effect  upon  them.  Well,  yes,  they  all  suppose  that 
they  are  so  ;  the  Bible  says  it,  the  Catechism  echoes 
it,  and  the  minister  re-echoes  it.  It  is  the  general 
opinion  of  the  whole  neighborhood  that  they  are  all 
sinful ;  that  they  are  sold  under  sin ;  that  they  are  in 
bondage  to  sin.  This  is  iterated  and  reiterated,  until 
by  and  by  people  say,  Yes,  we  are  all  sinners  ;  none 
of  us  are  clad  in  holiness  ;  we  are  all  under  the  wrath 
and  curse  of  God.  But  how  much  do  they  feel  it  ? 
What  reality  is  there  in  it  to  them  ? 

THE  GENERIC  MADE  POTENT  BY  THE  SPECIFIC. 

As  I  shall  have  occasion  to  show  by  and  by,  these 
forms,  these  limitations,  these  statements,  these  defi- 
nitions, being  filled  up  by  vital  personal  experience, 
become  of  immense  potency  and  usefulness  ;  but  alone, 
without  any  filling  up,  they  are  of  very  little  validity. 

If  a  man  can  be  shown  an  act  of  heroic  benevolence, 
and  if  then  his  own  daily  dripping  selfishness  can  be 
put  right  alongside  of  it,  he  will  hardly  need  a  sermon. 
The  two  things  will  preach  to  each  other. 

If  a  man,  full  of  avarice  and  bound  up  in  stinginess, 
has  presented  before  him  the  very  opposite  traits  of 
character  in  all  grace  and  beauty,  the  ideal  which  he 
gets,  the  impression  which  is  made  upon  him,  the  prac- 
tical development  of  the  right  which  he  sees,  becomes 
the  revelator  of  the  wrong,  and  gives  him  such  a  po- 
tent Sense  of  that  wrong  as  can  be  given  to  him  by  no 
argupcient  and  lio  merely  philosophical  statement. 


THE  SENSE  OF  PERSONAL  SIN. 


223 


By  and  by,  when,  by  such  a  comparison,  you  have 
prepared  a  man's  mind  so  that  at  last  he  is  brought  to 
an  understanding  of  his  condition,  of  his  lack,  of  the 
reason  of  his  deficiency,  of  his  limitations,  and  of  his 
sins,  then  it  is  a  very  different  thing  to  preach  that 
men  generally  are  sinful;  it  becomes  an  idea  with  a 
new  meaning.  The  true  way  of  preacliing  is  not  to 
preach  the  general  sinfulness  of  men,  and  then  leave 
them  to  find  out  their  sins,  but  to  open  up  to  them 
their  sins,  so  that  they  may  see  them  by  a  comparison 
of  what  they  are  with  the  ideal  standard,  and  then 
bring  them  from  the  consciousness  of  personal  trans- 
gression up  to  the  highest  generic  view. 

SCRIPTUKAL  versus  THEOLOGICAL  PREACHING. 

In  preaching  these  elements,  men  must  follow  the 
Scripture  method,  as  distinguished  from  the  theologi- 
cal method.  I  do  not  wish  to  speak  evil  of  dignities, 
nor  of  customs,  nor  of  the  wisdom  of  men ;  but  woe  be 
to  any  generation  that  is  not  better  for  the  power  that 
it  has  to  differ  from  that  which  went  before ;  and  woe 
be  to  any  generation  whose  principle,  in  looking  back 
upon  great  men,  great  thoughts,  and  great  develop- 
ments, which  have  prepared  the  way  for  later  genera- 
tions, is  to  look  upon  them  only  as  upon  idols,  to  wor- 
ship them.  It  is  a  fact  that  one  set  of  men  having 
lived  makes  the  state  of  the  next  set  larger,  and  ena- 
bles them  to  go  further  in  the  line  of  development  than 
their  fathers  did. 

Now,  I  think  there  could  be  no  such  cruelty  as 
to  preach  to  this  generation  as  Jonathan  Edwards 
preached  to  his.    Not  that  there  were  not  magnificent 


224 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


strains  in  his  preaching;  but  there  was  such  a  sense 
of  the  Divine  authority,  such  a  sense  of  the  rights  of 
Divinity,  and  such  a  sense  of  the  sinfulness  of  sin, 
as  amounted,  not  always,  but  frequently,  to  a  species 
of  inhumanity  toward  men  because  they  were  sinful. 
And  there  has  been  since  his  time,  and  since  the  times 
of  other  great  men  who  preached  revival  sermons, 
what  I  may  call  a  savage  way  of  preaching  man's  sin- 
fulness, —  which  is  not  the  Scriptural  way.  The  Bible 
method  of  preaching  the  sinfulness  of  man  is  the  pa- 
rental way.  The  Scriptures  are  full  of  human  feeling ; 
they  are  full  of  considerateness  ;  they  are  full  of  gen- 
tleness ;  they  are  full  of  variations  of  approach ;  tliey 
are  full  of  differing  modes  of  development ;  and  what 
the  pulpit  needs  more  than  anything  else  in  preaching 
man's  sinfulness  is  the  feeling,  on  the  part  of  those 
that  preach,  that  they  are  joined  to  man  by  his  sinful- 
ness the  same  as  by  his  sorrow,  and  that  they  are  to 
be  helpful  to  him,  and  to  feel  toward  him  as  a  father 
feels  toward  his  son,  or  as  a  mother  feels  toward  her 
daughter. 

SYMPATHY  WITH  SINNERS. 

It  is  not  the  man  who  has  the  most  profound  sense 
of  the  glory  of  God ;  it  is  not  the  man  who  has  the 
most  acute  sensibility  to  the  sinfulness  of  sin  ;  it  is  the 
man  who  carries  in  his  heart  something  of  the  feeling 
which  characterized  the  atoning  Christ,  —  it  is  he  that 
is  the  most  effectual  preacher.  It  is  the  man  who  has 
some  such  sorrow  for  sin  that  he  would  rather  take 
penalty  upon  himself  than  that  the  sinner  should  bear 
it.    It  is  not  the  man  who  is  merely  seeking  the  vindi- 


THE  SENSE  OF  PERSONAL  SIN. 


225 


cation  of  abstract  law,  or  the  recognition  of  a  great, 
invisible  God  ;  it  is  the  man  who  is  seeking  in  himself 
to  make  plain  the  manifestation  of  God  as  a  Physician 
of  souls,  sorrowing  for  them,  calling  to  them,  and 
yearning  to  do  them  good.  It  is  the  compassion  of 
men  who,  while  they  know  how  to  depict  the  danger- 
ousness  of  sin,  oftentimes  its  meanness,  and  always  its 
violation  of  Divine  law,  yet  recognize  that  they  can 
never  bring  men  so  easily  to  an  admission  of  their  sin- 
fulness by  representing  God's  wrath  and  producing  in 
them  a  feeling  of  terror,  as  by  holding  up  before  them 
the  Divine  compassion  and  kindness. 

"  Come  here  ! "  says  a  father  to  his  child ;  "  you  played 
truant,  it  seems."  "  No,  I  did  n't,"  says  the  boy.  "You 
did  n't  ?  Now,  don't  undertake  to  deceive' me  ;  you  did ! 
You  see  that  whip ;  you  know  what  is  coming ;  own 
that  you  did  it."  "  I  did  n't  do  it."  Well,  how  came 
you  not  to  be  at  school  ? "  ''I  was  sent  on  an  errand." 
"  Who  sent  you  ? "    "  The  schoolmaster." 

Suppose,  instead  of  approaching  the  boy  in  anger, 
and  driving  him  into  a  succession  of  lies  through  fear, 
the  man  had  called  him  to  him,  and  said :  Have  you 
had  a  pleasant  time,  my  son  ?  You  have  been  weak 
to-day.  I  am  very  sorry  for  you.  I  know  you  were 
tempted ;  and  you  gave  way  to  the  temptation.  If  I 
had  been  with  you  I  could  have  helped  you.  Perhaps 
I  can  help  you  some  now.  I  am  very  sorry  that  you 
did  that.  I  don't  mean  to  punish  you ;  but  I  want  to 
help  you  out  of  this  weakness." 

All  the  time  the  boy's  tears  are  running  down  his 
cheeks ;  he  does  not  deny  the  charge  ;  and  when  his 
father  goes  on  to  point  out  the  indecorum  of  which  he 
10*  o 


226 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


is  guilty,  the  ruin  to  which  it  will  lead  him  if  he  per- 
sists in  it,  and  the  bad  example  which  he  has  set  in  the 
school,  he  feels  worse  and  worse ;  and  when  finally  the 
father  asks,  "  What  will  your  mother  think  of  it  ? " 
he  boo-hoos  right  out.  He  cannot  bear  to  have  his 
mother  told ;  and  the  father  says,  "  If  you  will  try  to 
do  better,  I  won't  say  anything  about  it " ;  and  he  is 
exceedingly  grateful  to  his  father ;  and  the  next  time 
he  is  tempted  to  play  truant  all  his  best  feelings  rise 
up  to  hinder  him ;  and  all  in  him  that  is  generous  and 
loving  says,    I  don't  want  to  do  it." 

In  the  one  case  the  father  came  to  the  boy  with 
wrath  and  penalty,  and  the  boy  hardened  himself  and 
resisted.  In  the  other  case,  the  father  came  to  the  boy 
with  the  same  charge,  but  he  did  it  in  such  a  way  as 
to  bring  him  into  a  condition  in  which  his  best  moral 
feelings  were  roused  against  temptation. 

Ought  we  not,  then,  to  gather  some  lessons  from 
things  that  are  taking  place  through  the  providence  of 
God  in  every  Christian  household,  in  every  household 
that  is  controlled  by  Christian  affections ;  and,  above 
all,  by  that  supremest  of  all  inspirations,  love  ?  Are 
they  not,  in  some  remote  sense,  revelations  of  the  Divine 
plan  and  the  Divine  methods  ?  When  we  turn  from 
these  things  to  the  New  Testament,  and  see  the  way 
of  our  Lord,  may  we  not  understand  that  one  mode  of 
preaching  to  men  so  as  to  bring  them  to  a  sense  of 
their  sinfulness  is  to  preach  to  them,  I  will  not  say  ex- 
cusatorily,  I  will  not  say  in  a  manner  which  will  make 
sin  seem  less  sinful,  but  so  that  they  shall  not  think  of 
you  as  standing  over  them  like  a  sheriff  who  has  a  writ 
to  serve  upon  thenl,  or  who  has  a  sentence  of  execution 


THE  SENSE  OF  PERSONAL  SIN. 


227 


which  is  to  take  them  to  the  block  ?  You  are  to  preach 
so  that  men  shall  feel  that  the  things  which  you  say  to 
them  are  spoken  out  of  kindness  and  love.  I  do  not 
think  that  ministers  quite  enough  put  themselves  out 
of  their  profession. 

KNOWLEDGE  NECESSARY  TO  SYMPATHY. 

A  boy  at  the  age  of  about  ten  or  eleven  years  rather 
turns  to  the  subject  of  the  Christian  ministry.  He 
rather  selects  his  company  with  the  view  that  he  may 
be  a  minister.  He  rather  thinks  he  shall  be.  He  knows 
that  his  mother  is  praying  for  it  all  the  time,  and  he 
would  like  to  fulfill  her  hopes.  He  reads  good  books,  and 
goes  with  good  boys,  and  is  a  good  boy  himself.  When 
he  goes  to  school,  he  is  a  model  boy.  He  does  not  have 
any  association  with  bad  boys.  When  he  goes  to  the 
academy,  he  is  still  rather  remarkable  as  a  good  boy ; 
and  by  this  time  he  begins  to  know  it.  When  he  reaches 
the  college,  he  goes  right  into  the  college  prayer-meet- 
ing, and  is  soon  made  a  deacon  in  the  college  church. 
He  walks  in  the  ways  of  the  wise,  and  really  does  not 
know  much  about  human  life  outside.  He  has  very  little 
acquaintance  with  what  are  the  troubles  of  bad  and 
high-spirited  young  men  in  college.  And  as  soon  as  he 
gets  to  the  theological  seminary  he  is  put  to  bed  with 
Emmons  and  all  the  other  excellent  saints  of  New  Eng- 
land. He  lives  with  them.  And  when  he  is  ordained  as 
a  minister  he  goes  to  all  the  associational  meetings,  and 
to  all  the  councils,  and  is  everywhere  in  close  relations 
with  his  own  kind  and  class.  So  it  comes  to  pass  that 
he  is  one  of  the  most  exemplary  of  all  the  men  that  go 
into  the  pulpit.    But,  really,  he  knows  next  to  nothing 


228 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


about  the  way  in  which  ordinary  men  live  in  this  world. 
He  cannot  put  himself  in  anybody's  place. 

Jesus  descended  from  the  loftiest  position,  took  upon 
himself  the  form  of  a  man,  humbled  himself,  became  a 
servant,  and  was  obedient  unto  death,  even  the  death  of 
the  cross,  —  or,  as  we  should  put  it  in  our  modern 
phrase,  the  gallows.  He  walked  among  men  from  the 
highest  to  the  lowest,  and  made  himself  personally  ac- 
quainted with  every  trial  and  sin.  He  was  tempted  in 
every  faculty,  and  yet  without  sin.  He  knew  what 
was  in  men,  and  he  knew  how  to  make  allow^ance  for 
them.  He  w^as  their  High-Priest,  symbolized  by  the 
Jewish  high-priest.  Like  ourselves,  he  knew^  what 
human  infirmities  were,  and  he  had  compassion  upon 
those  who  were  out  of  the  way.  This  was  the  peculiarity 
of  Christ, —  that  he  sympathized  with  sinners. 

With  how  many  young  professional  ministers  is  it 
the  case  that  they  do  not  know  the  great  round  of 
weakness  and  infirmity,  as  well  as  guilt,  which  pre- 
vails in  the  community  !  How  men  are  born  into  life, 
—  with  what  limitations ;  with  what  different  degrees 
of  opportunity ;  with  what  biases ;  with  what  partial 
education,  wrong  education,  or  excellent  education  ! 
Some  men  are  born  with  might  and  power  of  will  and 
passion  almost  irresistible.  Some  men  go  mourning  all 
their  life  long  that  their  stream  of  success  runs  so 
slender,  and  is  so  full  of  shallows  and  sand-bars.  Some 
men,  in  their  feelings,  are  swept  as  leaves  in  autumn  by 
the  teniDest ;  and  some  men  never  know  what  a  breeze 
of  feeling  is.  Some  men  are  invincible  by  money,  and 
others  are  vincible  by  it.  Some  men,  in  their  pride, 
are  like  snow-capped  mountains^  grand,  high,  white, 


THE  SENSE  OF  PERSONAL  SIN. 


229 


cold,  solitary.  Some  men  are  born  with  melancholy, 
and  some  with  hope.  Some  men  are  happy  in  their 
associations  and  avocations,  and  others  find  themselves 
entangled  by  false  alliances,  by  mis-partnerships,  by 
ten  thousand  influences  from  which  they  are  struggling 
to  break  away.  Some  men  are  all  the  time  condemn- 
ing themselves,  and  others  are  all  the  time  overesti- 
mating themselves.  There  is  a  great  whirl  and  round 
of  human  nature  into  which  men  are  thrown,  and 
where  the  strife  is  intense,  and  the  result  doubtful. 
Some  men  sin  and  hide  their  sin,  and  others  sin  and  do 
not  know  how  to  hide  it.  Some,  having  sinned,  sink 
down  under  a  sense  of  shame,  and  some  are  buoyed  up 
by  a  feeling  of  pride.  Some,  when  cast  out  by  reason 
of  their  sins,  are  conscious  that  they  are  better  than 
many  who  are  kept  in.  Some  who  are  doomed  to 
poverty  feel  that  they  are  more  deserving  of  prosperity 
than  those  who  have  it  but  do  not  earn  it.  The  great 
round  of  life  is  full  of  mistakes  and  of  mysterious  influ- 
ences, against  which  men  stagger  and  strive,  in  various 
degrees.  And  the  man  who  occupies  the  position  of  a 
minister  of  the  gospel  should  have  such  a  realizing 
knowledge  and  sense  of  human  want  and  weakness 
and  wickedness,  that  the  thought  of  these  things  would 
bring  tears  of  sympathy  to  his  eyes. 

If  one  in  this  spirit  reads  the  New  Testament,  and 
sees  how  God  deals  with  sin  and  with  sinners,  he  will 
find  no  letting  down  of  the  ideal  of  goodness  as  against 
sin ;  he  will  find  no  lowering  of  the  standard  of  holiness 
as  against  sinfulness.  Tliat  ideal  and  that  standard 
must  be  kept  up  forever.  Let  God  be  true,  but  every 
man  a  liar."   No  matter  what  comes,  keep  the  standard 


230 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


and  the  ideal  high.  But,  after  all,  working  with  that 
ideal  should  be  full  of  patience  and  sweetness.  Your 
sorrow  for  tlie  people  to  whom  you  preach  should  be 
greater  than  their  sorrow  for  themselves  can  be.  You 
are  to  make  yourself,  therefore,  in  the  place  of  Christ, 
a  sufferer  for  sufferers,  sent  to  bear  sin  in  its  pain  and 
penalty,  without  its  guilt. 

There  are  unsuspected  influences  in  the  air.  Men  are 
afraid  to  carry  their  consciences  into  their  life.  This 
you  ought  to  understand ;  I  think  you  will  be  convinced 
of  it  when  you  come  to  preach  ;  and  I  believe  it  will 
help  you  to  preach  so  that  men  will  be  made  to  feel 
their  weakness  and  sinfulness  and  infirmities. 

CONVENTIONAL  AND  RExiL  SINS. 

Men  in  the  community  at  large  are  seldom  trained 
with  a  universal  conscience.  In  general,  they  are  trained 
with  what  might  be  called  a  conventional  conscience, — 
a  conscience  which  is  largely  ecclesiastical.  There  are, 
in  the  first  place,  conventional  sins.  The  church  has  its 
organization  and  its  house  of  worship ;  and  men  feel 
that  it  would  be  a  great  sin  to  treat  this  edifice  as  they 
would  an  ordinary  structure.  Especially  are  men  trained 
in  the  Eoman  and  Episcopal  and  in  other  denomina- 
tional churches  to  feel  that  there  is  a  sanctity  in  the 
building  itself.  And  there  is  no  reason  why  we  should 
not  suppose  that  Divine  grace  inheres  in  stone  and 
plaster  as  much  as  in  bread  and  wine.  So  men  are 
taught  to  feel  that  lack  of  respect  toward  a  venerable 
church  is  next  to  contempt  of  God. 

A  man  walks  half-way  up  the  aisle  in  a  church,  ab- 
sent-minded, with  his  hat  on,  and  whistling,  and  coming 


THE  SENSE  OF  PERSONAL  SIN. 


231 


to  his  senses  checks  himself,  and  thinks  he  is  a  great 
sinner.  He  has  whistled  in  church  !  He  has  worn  his 
hat  in  the  house  of  God  1  I  should  say,  young  gen- 
tlemen, that  you  had  better  not  wear  your  hat  in  any 
house  ;  and  that  whistling  in  a  dwelling-house  is  always 
bad  manners  ;  but  whistling  in  a  church  is  considered 
by  many  as  a  gross  offense.  And  this  man,  going 
home,  says  to  his  wife,  "  I  really  feel  bad,  my  dear  " ; 
and  he  tells  her  how  he  wore  his  hat  and  whistled  in 
church  ;  and  she  exclaims,  "  Why,  that  was  shocking  1 
I  hope  nobody  saw  you."  He  is  thoroughly  ashamed 
of  himself,  and  feels  guilty  besides.  The  next  morning 
he  gets  up,  and  understanding  that  there  is  a  man  in 
the  neighborhood  who  wants  a  horse,  he  thinks  he  will 
sell  him  his,  —  which  is  a  good  horse,  but  is  slightly 
lame  on  account  of  a  contracted  hoof.  The  lameness 
does  not  show,  however,  except  when  he  is  put  to  hard 
work.  So  the  man  sells  his  horse.  He  knows  that  it 
is  unsound,  yet  he  dexterously  conceals  the  fact,  and 
the  bargain  is  consummated.  Now  does  he  go  back  to 
his  wife  and  say,  O  my  dear,  I  am  a  great  sinner "  ? 
Not  he ! 

From  this  you  will  see  what  I  mean  by  a  conven- 
tional sin,  as  standing  over  against  a  real  sin. 

THE  SUNDAY  QUESTION. 

In  that  way,  you  shall  find  that  men  are  often  very 
conscientious  about  Sunday ;  that  is,  strict  Puritans. 
They  will  not  do  any  work  on  Sunday,  nor  even  on 
Saturday  night.  On  Sunday  they  will  not  allow  any 
newspapers  to  be  read  in  their  families.  Neither  will 
they  allow  any  except  "  Sunday  books  "  to  be  read. 


232 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


Their  children  must  go  to  meeting  in  the  morning,  and, 
if  possible,  again  in  the  afternoon.  There  must  be 
nothing  done  of  a  secular  nature  until  after  the  sun 
has  gone  down  below  the  horizon.  One  minute  and 
it  is  irreverent,  it  is  breaking  Sunday,  to  tell  a  funny- 
story.  The  next  minute  down  goes  the  sun,  and  then 
the  story  may  be  told.  The  very  persons  who  are  thus 
particular  about  observing  Sunday  and  fast-days  will, 
even  on  Sunday,  sit  and  discuss  their  neighbors'  faults 
without  a  shadow  of  the  feeling  that  they  are  striking 
a  thousand  fathoms  deeper  into  sin  than  they  would  be 
if  they  were  to  "  break  "  Sunday. 

I  admire  Sunday,  I  admire  the  old  Jewish  Sabbath, 
and  I  think  New  England  owes  much  to  it.  One  of 
the  sweetest  of  my  reminiscences  is  that  of  the  old 
breezy  hill-top  in  Litchfield  on  Sunday  ;  of  the  Sun- 
day sun,  and  the  Sunday  birds,  and  the  Sunday  shim- 
mering Mount  Tom,  and  the  Sunday  elm-trees,  and  the 
Sunday  scenes,  some  of  which  were  touching,  and  some 
ludicrous.  As  I  recall  it,  Sunday  was  a  great  moral 
power.  But  how  about  uncharitableness  ?  How  about 
avarice  ?  How  about  deliberate  selfishness  in  ten  thou- 
sand customary  ways  ?  How  about  anger  ?  How  about 
the  spirit  of  petty  revenge  ?  How  about  such  things 
as  these,  which  go  right  to  the  root  of  moral  character, 
and  are  like  rust  on  steel,  eating  to  its  very  substance  ? 

And,  nowadays,  what  is  the  public  sentiment  of  the 
church  ?  What  is  the  sentiment  of  those  who  meet 
each  other  in  church  communion  ?  What  is  the  sen- 
timent of  persons  who  sit  over  against  each  other  at 
the  tea-table,  and  delight  themselves  in  serving  up  their 
fellow-men,  and  enjoy  the  little  repast  of  this  fault  and 


THE  SENSE  OF  PERSONAL  SIN. 


233 


that  suspicion  ?  How  many  people  feel  that  the  want 
of  heart,  the  want  of  love  and  tenderness,  the  want  of 
benevolence,  indicates  a  lack  of  that  higher  love  which 
makes  God  God  ?  How  many  persons  are  there  who 
feel  that  these  sins  of  disposition  amount  to  immeasur- 
ably more  than  customary  and  ecclesiastical  sins  ?  Does 
the  pulpit  do  its  duty  in  this  matter  ?  Do  men  who 
preach  sufficiently  enlighteii  their  congregations  con- 
cerning it  ? 

How  is  it  in  the  matter  of  quarreling  ?  There  are 
parishes  in  New  England  where  men  have  had  quar- 
rels which  they  watered  and  pruned  and  nourished  for 
twenty  years ;  and  it  would  seem  to  be  their  pride  to 
hand  them  down  as  a  legacy  to  their  posterity.  In  the 
West,  when  men  quarrel,  they  knock  each  other  down 
and  roll  over,  and  get  up  and  take  a  drink,  and  that  is 
the  end  of  it ;  but  in  New  England  men  do  not  dare  to 
take  the  law  into  their  own  hands  and  settle  their  diffi- 
culty, but  they  remember  it.  They  carry  the  insult,  the 
wrong,  the  grudge,  the  hatred ;  and  it  breaks  out  into 
evil  speaking,  backbiting,  and  all  manner  of  little  mean 
retaliations.  Men  who  cherish  bitter  animosities  toward 
each  other  yet  go  to  the  same  communion-table,  and  sit 
under  the  same  preaching,  from  ten  years  to  ten  years, 
and  all  the  time  they  do  not  feel  that  Mount  Sinai, 
if  it  could  speak,  would  thunder  at  them ;  but  they  are 
talking  about  their  hopes,  and  their  hopes,  and  their 
hopes ! 

Now,  I  want  to  know  if  any  abstract  preaching  of 
sinfulness,  and  letting  alone  the  real  and  specific  sins 
of  the  commonest  sort,  can  be  a  faithful  and  fruitful 
preaching  of  sinfulness? 


234 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


RELATIVE  PROPORTIONS  OF  DIFFERENT  SINS. 

More  than  that,  there  is  a  want  of  perspective  in 
men's  conscience  or  sense  of  sin,  so  that  they  overesti- 
mate some  offenses  and  underestimate  others.  For 
instance,  you  will  find  persons  who,  if  they  sit  down  on 
the  Bible,  suddenly  spring  up  with  a  most  overwhelm- 
ing sense  of  sin  ;  or,  having  neglected  some  minor  duty, 
they  will  groan  over  that  as  though  it  were  a  most  seri- 
ous transgression.  In  their  minds  there  is  no  distinc- 
tion between  sins  in  regard  to  their  magnitude.  They 
have  no  sense  of  the  relative  proportions  of  sins,  and 
of  their  effects  in  the  community.  Therefore  men  fre- 
quently indulge  themselves  in  the  most  ruinous  courses 
without  compunction,  and  then  make  a  great  account 
of  little  peccadillos,  manifesting  the  intensest  contrition 
concerning  them. 

There  is  great  need,  therefore,  of  maintaining  in  the 
minds  of  men  a  clear  insight  of  the  nature  of  sins,  and 
thus  giving  them  a  true  standard  by  which  to  judge  of 
sinfulness. 

RELATIVITY  OF  PREACHING. 

That  leads  me  to  say,  next,  that  there  are  very  few 
persons  who  are  so  round,  so  all-sided,  that  any  part  of 
them  is  a  true  test  of  right  or  wrong.  Taking  society 
at  large,  you  will  find  that  it  breaks  itself  up  into  groups 
or  classes  of  men,  that  only  one  or  two  of  the  faculties 
of  the  human  mind  are  employed  by  each  class,  and  that 
these  become  the  tests. 

For  example,  you  will  find  that  some  men  have  an 
intellectual  test.    It  is  the  agreement  between  this  or 


THE  SENSE  OF  PERSONAL  SIN. 


235 


that  course  of  conduct  and  the  rule  or  the  law.  By  na- 
ture or  by  training  almost  the  entire  sensibility  of  their 
minds  has  been  centered  in  intellectual  processes,  and 
ideas  control  them.  So,  when  you  preach  in  a  large 
city,  if  you  are  an  able  man  and  draw  men  toward  you, 
you  will  find  in  your  congregation  a  great  many  who, 
while  you  are  touching  this  man,  that  man,  and  the 
other  man,  will  themselves  never  be  touched.  You  will 
appeal  to  their  heart,  to  their  manhood,  to  their  sense  of 
shame,  to  their  better  feelings,  but  you  will  not  reach 
them.  By  and  by,  however,  there  will  come  a  man  who 
will  preach  a  different  kind  of  sermon  in  your  pulpit. 
The  majority  of  the  people  will  say,  "  I  hope  you  are  not 
going  to  have  that  man  exchange  with  you  often.  I  do 
not  know  why,  but  it  seems  to  me  that  his  sermon  was 
the  driest  that  I  have  listened  to  for  many  months."  But 
these  men  of  ideas  will  say,  "  I  never  had  anything 
come  so  near  to  me  as  that  man's  sermon.  I  do  not 
understand  how  it  was,  but  he  made  me  tremble."  The 
center  in  them  was  not  moral  at  all ;  it  was  intellectual. 
The  tests  by  which  they  were  accustomed  to  judge  of 
right  and  wrong  were  purely  intellectual ;  and  therefore 
they  were  struck  with  that  sermon  and  affected  by  it. 

You  must  make  up  your  mind,  as  ministers  of  the 
gospel,  that  you  are  to  strike  everybody,  in  your  preach- 
ing. A  minister  must  be  like  a  magazine,  provided 
with  a  varied  armament.  If  you  are  going  to  batter 
down  a  fort,  your  battering  guns  must  be  very  heavy. 
If  you  are  going,  on  the  other  hand,  to  pick  off  men  at 
a  great  distance,  you  must  get  telescopic  rifles.  If  you 
are  going  to  shoot  water-fowl,  you  must  take  a  heavy 
shot-gun.    If,  as  an  ornithologist,  you  are  going  to 


236 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


shoot  small  birds,  you  must  take  a  small  shot-gun  and 
small  shot.  The  kind  of  game  which  you  are  going 
to  hunt  will  determine  the  sort  of  gun,  the  caliber 
of  the  arms,  which  you  will  require.  Because  you  are 
a  man  of  taste,  you  must  not  preach  taste  all  the  time ; 
because  you  are  a  man  of  feeling,  you  must  not  preach 
feeling  all  the  time  ;  and  because  you  are  a  man  of  con- 
science, you  must  not  preach  conscience  all  the  time. 

MANY  ROADS  TO  CONSCIENCE. 

Young  men,  however  much  it  may  tax  you  to  think, 
you  must  think,  if  you  are  going  to  be  ministers.  Tliere 
must  be  that  in  your  preaching  which  shall  take  hold 
of  the  men  to  whom  you  preach.  There  will  be  differ- 
ent classes  of  minds  in  your  congregations,  and  you 
must  adapt  your  preaching  to  those  different  classes. 
There  will  be  those  who  will  be  touched  more  by  intel- 
lectual preaching  than  by  anything  else,  and  there  will 
be  those  whom  intellectual  preaching  will  scarcely 
touch.  There  will  be  those  who  will  respond  to  an 
appeal  to  the  conscience,  and  there  will  be  those  who 
will  not  be  at  all  affected  by  such  an  appeal.  There 
will  be  those  who  can  be  more  easily  reached  through 
taste  than  through  any  other  channel ;  and  you  will 
reach  them  effectually  by  showing  them  that  they  are 
out  of  harmony  with  the  universe.  There  will  be  men 
whom  you  cannot  touch  by  appealing  to  their  emotion 
of  benevolence  and  kindness,  but  whom  you  can  touch 
by  appealing  to  their  conscience.  An  abstract  sense 
of  right  and  wrong  is  a  strong  constitutional  center  in 
many  persons,  and  they  are  at  once  overwhelmed  and 
oppressed  when  they  are  made  to  feel  that  they  have 


THE  SENSE  OF  PERSONAL  SIN. 


237 


violated  the  principles  of  rectitude.  But  a  practical 
sermon,  which  is  called  "  a  sermon  to  the  conscience," 
and  which  screws  the  conscience  down  and  down  and 
down,  and  wellnigh  crushes  it,  will  leave  a  large  part 
of  your  congregation  without  feeling,  or  wdth  very  slight 
feeling,  because  that  is  not  the  point  where  they  deter- 
mine right  and  wrong.  Conscience  in  them  has  never 
been  trained  or  brought  out.  There  are  men  whose 
whole  life  determines  right  and  wrong  by  its  relations 
to  kindness  or  unkindness. 

I  know,  and  you  know,  great,  large,  front-headed 
men,  men  with  high  foreheads,  bountiful  men,  men 
with  large  features,  who  cannot  bear  cruelty  or  any- 
thing that  looks  toward  it.  To  them  anything  that 
hurts  is  wrong.  They  interfere  with  family  discipline, 
saying,  "Now,  don't,  don't  punish  that  child."  If  it 
is  a  merchant's  clerk  that  has  gone  wrong,  they  say, 
"  You  had  better  look  at  the  young  man  more  kindly, 
and  give  him  another  chance."  They  interfere  with 
the  execution  of  the  laws.  Anything  that  is  cruel,  or 
that  gives  pain,  they  look  upon  with  disallowance ;  and 
anything  that  is  benevolent  receives  their  approbation. 
Kindness  is  the  test-center  with  them.  Show  them  that 
sin  is  unbenevolent  and  you  have  them.  If  you  cannot 
show  them  this,  it  may  be  a  violation  of  God's  law,  and 
they  will  wink  at  it ;  it  may  be  an  insult  to  the  majesty 
of  Heaven,  and  they  will  encourage  it ;  it  may  be  send- 
ing men  down  to  perdition,  and  they  will  not  look  with 
great  disfavor  upon  it;  but  show  them  that  it  is  harm- 
ful to  living  men,  and  give  them  instances  of  its  harm- 
fulness,  and  you  will  touch  them  so  that  tears  will  run 
from  their  eyes,  and  they  wiU  begin  to  say, Well,  now, 


238 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


sin  is  sin,  and  must  be  put  a  stop  to  " ;  but  the  moral 
sense  of  such  men  is  in  sensibility  to  benevolence,  and 
not  in  conscience  nor  in  the  intellect. 

Some  men  will  be  far  more  likely  to  be  convicted  if 
you  show  them  that  their  life  has  been  unbecoming 
and  inconsistent  with  the  higher  forms  of  manhood ; 
that  it  has  not  been  chivalric  nor  heroic. 

Here  is  a  man  of  pride.  He  has  been  accustomed  to 
judge  of  himself  and  of  his  relatives  by  that  element ; 
but  his  conscience  works  with  his  pride,  —  for,  let  me 
tell  you,  there  is  not  one  man  in  a  thousand  of  average 
men  whose  conscience  is  pure  and  simple.  Everybody, 
almost,  has  some  faculty  that  is  auxiliary  to  conscience. 
You  cannot  touch  conscience  in  the  majority  of  men 
except  through  some  auxiliary  faculty  which  opens  to 
it.  One  man  is  touched  in  his  conscience  through  the 
understanding  ;  another,  through  benevolence,  as  I  have 
already  said ;  another  when  you  have  convicted  his 
ideals.  In  some  cases  conscience  lies  at  the  bottom  of 
a  man's  self-esteem  ;  and  if  you  reach  it  you  must  reach 
it  by  arguments  addressed  to  his  estimation  of  himself. 
Others  have  conscience  so  allied  to  shame  that  if  you 
rouse  it  you  must  first  rouse  up  their  sense  of  shame, 
and  make  them  feel  that  they  have  violated  that  which 
is  praiseworthy.  You  cannot  touch  their  conscience  in 
any  other  way. 

A  man  is  a  thief.  He  breaks  open  houses.  He  sets 
fire  to  barns.  He  murders  men.  Among  his  compan- 
ions he  does  not  feel  the  first  qualm  of  sensibility. 
He  is  arrested,  and  brought  into  the  village  where  all 
his  old  friends  reside.  He  is  thrown  into  jail.  The 
whole  community  are  full  of  indignation.    One  after 


THE  SENSE  OF  PERSONAL  SIN. 


239 


another  of  his  former  acquaintances  come  and  look  in 
on  him  as  though  he  were  a  wild  beast.  He  begins 
to  fell  the  concentrated  sense  of  the  indignation  and 
blame  of  the  whole  people.  His  love  of  praise  is  very 
strong  ;  and  now,  under  the  intluence  of  detection  and 
disclosure  and  the  public  sentiment  of  the  community, 
he  begins  to  have  a  feeling  of  'remorse.  He  did  not 
feel  remorseful  at  all  in  the  midst  of  his  confederates  ; 
but  when  he  was  brought  where  shame  operated  upon 
him  his  conscience  waked  up,  and  being  waked  up  by 
such  help  and  stimulus,  it  became  mighty  in  him. 

You  cannot  get  at  men's  consciences  unless  you  know 
what  are  the  auxiliary  powers  by  which  you  can  reach 
them.  In  some  fear  is  auxiliary ;  in  others  veneration 
is  auxiliary ;  and,  what  may  seem  strange  to  you,  but 
what  is  as  true  as  that  you  live,  in  still  others  taste  is 
auxiliary. 

A  musicia-n  who  is  exceedingly  irascible,  and  sensi- 
tive to  discord,  will  understand  how,  if  he  is  at  discord 
with  the  Divine  government,  he  is  sinful. 

There  are  many  persons  who  talk  to  us  in  this  way : 
I  cannot  worship  in  your  churches ;  but  let  me,  on  a 
Sunday  morning,  go  into  the  fields,  in  the  midst  of  the 
scenes  of  nature,  and  I  think  I  can  see  God  there.  My 
dear  old  venerable  father  used  to  pooh-pooh  that ;  he 
used  to  call  it  moonshine ;  and  I  used  to  say,  Yes, 
and  sunshine  too,  father ;  for  I  am  just  one  of  those 
persons."  I  never  had,  under  preaching,  anything  like 
such  a  personal  feeling  of  holiness,  or  such  a  sense  of 
the  nearness  and  overpowering  presence  of  the  other 
world  brought  to  me,  as  through  the  faculty  of  ideality, 
or  that  principle  of  the  soul  which  takes  cognizance  of 
fine,  beautiful  things,  —  the  sense  of  taste. 


240 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


I  know  that  when  I  was  in  the  Luxembourg,  and  saw 
the  first  real  regiment  of  paintings  that  I  ever  saw  in 
my  life,  everything  retreated  to  my  brain.  I  did  not  feel 
the  floor  when  I  walked  on  it.  My  head  seemed  like 
a  globe  of  fire.  I  never  felt  the  sanctity  of  the  love 
and  presence  of  God  so  near  to  me,  and  I  never  had 
such  an  appreciation  of  the  beauty  and  glory  of  infinite 
justice,  as  I  did  in  the  gallery  of  pictures  at  the  Luxem- 
bourg. I  might  have  sat  —  as  I  did  —  in  Calvin's  chair 
at  Geneva  without  any  emotions  of  that  kind.  I  ap- 
preciate  the  life  of  Calvin,  his  great  work,  and  his  ex- 
cellences ;  but  no  associations  connected  with  him  could 
produce  such  an  effect  upon  me  as  I  received  at  that 
time  through  the  sense  of  taste. 

My  dear  old  father  never  could  sympathize  with  that 
feeling.  He  thought  that  though  it  might  sometimes 
be  excused,  it  was  a  wishy-washy  sort  of  piety.  And 
there  are  many  who  feel  that  this  sense  of  exquisite 
beauty  cannot  have  much  to  do  with  religion.  And 
yet,  in  many  natures  it  is  auxiliary  to  their  conscience ; 
and  in  such  cases  through  it  you  will  reach  the  moral 
sense  when  you  cannot  in  any  other  way. 

A  man  says,  "  Such  a  lady  thinks  herself  so  literary 
and  so  fine,  that  she  has  gone  to  the  Episcopal  Church 
and  thinks  that  she  cannot  stand  our  preaching.  Tlie 
fact  is,  she  cannot  stand  the  right  up  and  down  truth. 
She  does  not  like  that  kind  of  preaching  which  opens 
the  door  of  the  heart  and  shows  a  man  that  he  is  a 
traitor  before  God,  and  is  bound  to  hell  and  damna- 
tion ;  and  so  she  has  gone  among  the  Episcopalians." 
How  much  knowledge  of  the  mind  of  man  has  a  per- 
son who  makes  that  criticism  ? 


THE  SENSE  OF  PERSONAL  SIN. 


241 


SINFULNESS  TO  BE  PREACHED  TOWARD  HOPE. 

Through  every  one  of  these  avenues  of  which  I  have 
spoken  the  conscience  may  be  approached.  Some  men 
are  so  organized  that  they  have  a  conscience  which  can 
be  reached  directly ;  but  the  majority  of  men  have  con- 
sciences which  can  be  aroused  only  through  auxiliary 
powers  ;  and  it  is  your  duty  to  know  what  these  auxil- 
iary powers  are,  and  through  them  to  address  men's 
consciences  so  as  to  be  sure  of  gaining  access  to  them. 
For  a  man's  conscience  is  like  a  man  in  his  house,  who 
is  very  busy,  and  who  instructs  his  servant  to  look  at 
every  person  who  comes  to  the  door,  and  let  him  in  if 
he  looks  all  right,  and  not  otherwise.  Many  a  man's 
conscience  is  not  reached  because  the  truth  is  not  prop- 
erly presented  to  him.  The  approach  which  we  make 
to  men's  consciences  and  feelings  in  religion  must  be 
made  in  such  a  way  as  to  excite  in  them,  not  comba- 
tiveness,  not  resistance,  but  hope  and  aspiration. 

There  are  times,  I  suppose,  when  a  congregation 
which  has  been  under  your  care  for  a  time  may  need 
to  be  roused  up  by  what  I  should  call  extravagant 
preaching.  I  remember  hearing  my  father  say  that 
when  he  went  to  East  Hampton  he  found  that  the 
church  there  had  subsided  into  a  state  of  lethargic  con- 
tent. He  could  not  by  a  direct  appeal  to  their  feelings 
produce  any  uplift;  and  so  he  resorted  to  another 
method.  Said  he,  "  I  took  decrees,  I  took  foreordina- 
tion,  I  took  election,  and  I  took  reprobation,  and  I  let 
them  off  all  at  once ;  and  pretty  soon  I  saw  that  the 
people  were  getting  mad.  I  kept  at  them  till  by  and 
by  I  had  the  whole  church  about  my  ears ;  and  they 

VOL.   III.  11  P 


242 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


liad  waked  up  ;  and  then  I  began  to  put  in  the  gos- 
pel." 

Now,  whatever  may  be  the  adroitness  of  such  a  prac- 
tice as  that  (I  do  not  undertake  to  judge  in  such  a 
matter),  the  general  rule,  and  the  rule  which,  if  you 
have  the  formation  and  training  of  your  church,  you 
will  scarcely  need  to  go  aside  from,  is  this :  that  all 
your  expositions  of  evil  and  shortcoming  should  inspire 
hope  in  your  people,  and  not  despair  ;  that  they  should 
work  toward  reformation,  and  not  merely  toward  pro- 
ducing in  men  the  feeling  that  they  are  miserable 
sinners,  like  the  Kentucky  negro,  who  had  been  kicked 
and  cudgeled  all  his  life,  and  always  expected  to  be 
kicked  and  cudgeled. 

CHRIST'S  WAY. 

You  know,  on  the  other  hand,  that  there  are  children 
who  are  so  sensitive  to  their  parents'  wishes  that  the 
slightest  frown,  or  shadow  of  a  frown,  throws  them  into 
tears.  They  want  to  do  the  things  which  will  please 
their  father  and  mother,  and  they  cannot  bear  the 
thought  that  they  have  done  anything  to  displease 
them.  And  you  should  give  your  congregations  such 
a  sense  of  the  wrongfulness  of  wrong,  and  the  sinful- 
ness of  sin,  that  they  shall  long  for  the  right  thing. 
Do  not  put  your  congregation  into  a  mortar,  and  take 
a  pestle,  and  grind  them  to  powder.  Do  not  make 
them  feel  all  the  time  that  they  are  miserable  sinners, 
and  that  God  may  by  and  by  come  with  a  revival,  and 
that  there  may  then  be  a  resurrection  in  the  valley  of 
dry  bones,  but  that  they  have  no  power  to  do  anything 
for  themselves.    Make  them  feel,  rather,  that  the  Lord 


THE  SENSE  OF  PERSONAL  SIN. 


243 


God,  who  made  the  earth,  is  the  Father  of  all  its  people, 
and  will  help  them,  "  working  in  them  to  will  and  to  do 
of  his  good  pleasure  "  ;  that  he  is  the  God  before  whom 
they  are  to  give  an  account,  and  who  has  made  himself 
known  to  them  by  the  death  of  Jesus  Christ ;  that  he 
has  said  to  the  world  that  the  nature  of  Divine  holiness 
and  Divine  power  was  to  be  such  as  to  recover  and  re- 
store manhood ;  that  the  plenitude  of  divinity  shows 
itself  in  this :  that  it  brings  forth  in  men  that  which 
reveals  to  them  what  is  good  and  what  is  bad.  You 
cannot  preach  of  man's  sinfulness  too  much,  nor  in  too 
many  ways,  provided  it  develops  in  your  hearers  an 
earnest  aspiration  and  a  longing  desire  for  larger  knowl- 
edge. The  effect  of  a  true  preaching  of  sinfulness  is 
to  produce  in  men  continual  disconte'nt,  so  that  they 
shall  say,  "  I  am  not  pure  in  my  heart ;  I  am  not  pa- 
tient as  T  ought  to  be ;  I  am  not  disinterested  enough  ; 
I  am  too  proud  and  too  selfish."  Where,  in  preaching, 
instead  of  simply  making  men  feel  that  they  have 
violated  the  law  of  the  universe,  you  make  them  feel 
that  sin  is  personal  to  them,  and  that  they  are  sinful 
in  the  moral  and  social  elements  of  their  being,  and  in 
the  conduct  of  their  life,  at  the  store,  in  the  school,  at 
home,  everywhere,  and  that  what  is  demanded  of  them 
is  that  they  shall  grow  as  men  in  Christ  Jesus,  I  think 
you  will  have  produced  the  effect  which  the  Lord  Jesus 
Christ  sought  in  his  preaching,  and  which  the  Apostles 
followed  in  their  teaching. 

Not  that  there  are  not  occasions  for  the  preaching  of 
fear ;  but  let  me  say  to  you,  gentlemen,  that  the  minis- 
tration of  fear,  pure  and  simple,  belongs  to  men  who 
stand  on  the  edge  of  animalism.    The  whip  for  the 


244 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


horse ;  the  goad  for  the  ox  ;  and  fear  for  that  man  whg  is 
the  next  remove  higher.  But  as  soon  as  fear  has  done 
its  work,  which  is  made  necessary  merely  because  men's 
hides  are  so  tough,  then  they  are  prepared  to  get  out  of 
the  way  of  it,  and  to  be  plied  with  something  nobler. 

Does  fear  die  away,  then  ?  No,  it  transmutes  itself 
It  becomes  an  undertone.  It  no  longer  exists  in  its 
own  absolute  form.  It  adds  itself,  as  a  kind  of  color, 
to  every  other  faculty  of  the  mind ;  so  that  conscience 
has  its  latent  fear,  hope  has  its  latent  fear,  and  love  has 
its  latent  fear.  It  is  no  longer  coarse,  selfish,  animal- 
like, but  it  gives  stimulus  and  edge  and  inspiration 
and  aspiration  to  each  of  the  better  feelings  in  the 
soul. 

Do  not  think,  then,  that  you  must  not  preach  fear. 
Preach  it ;  but,  as  soon  as  you  can,  preach  it  as  be- 
longing to  everything  which  is  beautiful,  and  sweet,  and 
pure,  and  truthful,  and  high,  and  noble. 

Whether  you  preach  one  view  of  sin  or  another, 
measure  your  preaching  by  this  :  Does  it  discourage 
men  ?  Does  it  drive  them  off  from  religion  ?  Does  it 
make  them  more  obstinate  and  self-willed  ?  Or,  does 
it  make  men  tender  ?  Does  it  enlarge  their  sense  of 
infirmity  ?  Does  it  show  them  where  infirmity  breaks 
over  into  sin  ?  Does  it  make  them  feel  that  they  need 
the  down-shining,  everlasting  presence  of  the  Divine 
Spirit  ?  If  such  is  the  fruit  of  your  preaching  of  sin, 
your  church  will  speedily  be  filled,  and  the  work  of 
Christ  will  go  on  under  your  ministration  to  the  sanc- 
tifiation  of  the  hearts  of  your  people,  as  fast  as  the 
work  of  summer  goes  on  when  autumn  is  near  at  hand, 
and  the  sun  is  in  its  full  blaze. 


X. 


THE  GEOWTH  OF  CHEISTIAN  LIFE. 

March  12,  1874. 

HIS  afternoon  I  purpose  speaking  to  you  on 
the  subject  of  Repentance,  Conversion,  and 
Sanctification,  —  the  three  stages  of  Chris- 
tian life. 

DISCIPLES  OF  CHRIST. 

What  is  a  Christian  ?  It  is  one  who  is  undertaking 
to  learn  how  to  live  as  Christ  commanded.  What  is 
enough  to  enable  one  to  say,  "  I  am  a  Christian "  ? 
On  what  ground  may  you,  as  pastors  and  teachers, 
encourage  your  people  to  feel  that  they  are  Christians, 
and  to  make  a  public  profession  of  their  faith  in  Chris- 
tianity ?  Whoever  gives  you  reasonable  evidence  that 
he  has  set  out  in  good  earnest  to  become  a  disciple  — 
that  is,  a  learner  —  in  the  spirit  and  school  of  Christ  has 
a  right  to  hope.  Almost  always  the  statement  in  my 
time  has  been  that  a  man  must  have  certain  interior 
changes  of  which  he,  or  somebody,  should  be  conscious, 
—  certain  philosophical,  interior  conditions,  which 
should  evince  their  reality  by  outward  life.  My  own 
judgment  is  that  the  definitions  of  becoming  a  Chris- 


246 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


tian  should  be  simplified  and  brought  back  to  where 
they  were  in  the  time  of  Christ  and  his  Apostles. 

THE  THREE  ELEMENTS. 

There  are  certainly  three  things  which  are  implied, 
although  they  may  not  be  consciously  analyzed  and 
distinctly  set  before  the  mind  of  a  person  who  is  a 
beginner  in  this  new  style  of  life,  —  namely,  renuncia- 
tion, adhesion,  and  construction.  It  will  not  hurt  you  to 
have  substituted  for  the  names  "  repentance,  faith,  and 
right-living "  these  less  familiar  names ;  for  sometimes 
a  new  word  sets  a  man  a-thinking ;  whereas,  if  a  word 
has  been  used  from  time  immemorial,  it  is  so  smooth 
from  handling  that  it  is  apt  to  slip  through  the  mind 
without  producing  any  impression.  Eenunciation  is  a 
resolute  purpose  to  abandon  wrong ;  a  vivid  discrimi- 
nation of  some  kind  between  right  and  wrong,  accord- 
ing to  the  intensity  of  the  man  (low  if  he  be  low, 
middle  if  he  be  at  the  middle,  and  high  if  he  be  high), 
accompanied  by  a  desire  to  turn  from  that  which  is 
wrong.  Adhesion  is  a  distinct  sense  of  foUowership  ; 
the  acceptance  of  Christ,  not  intellectually,  as  we  ac- 
cept Sir  William  Hamilton  in  one  school,  or  as  we 
accept  Comte  in  another  school,  or  as  we  accept  Her- 
bert Spencer  in  another  school,  but  as  one  accepts 
some  ideal  master  whose  personal  life  is  a  living  rep- 
resentation of  what  he  intends  to  be;  and  he  who 
comes  into  the  Christian  life  accepts  the  Lord  Jesus 
Christ  as  the  embodiment  of  that  life  which  he  means 
to  live,  and  as  the  representation  of  that  character 
which  he  means  to  form  in  himself ;  and  it  is  to  this 
Christ  that  he  comes  with  personal  adhesion. 


THE  GROWTH  OF  CHRISTIAN  LIFE. 


247 


SEED-TIME  AND  HARVEST. 

Now,  it  is  not  right  for  you  to  make  out  a  full  defi- 
nition of  faith,  as  it  exists  when  it  has  ripened  in  men, 
and  come  to  its  climax,  and  then  say  that  a  man  is  not 
converted  until  he  has  such  a  perception  of  Christ  as 
that,  and  such  a  form  of  adhesion  by  faith  to  him. 
For  we  are  not  to  test  the  beginnings  of  life  by  the 
phenomena  of  its  maturity.  You  are  not  to  apply  to 
a  new-born  babe  the  tests  which  you  apply  to  a  man, 
who,  by  law,  has  attained  his  majority.  A  babe  must 
be  judged  through  faith,  by  what  he  is  to  he,  much 
more  than  by  what  he  is. 

So  when  men  begin  the  divine  life,  although  some, 
under  circumstances  of  which  I  shall  speak,  from  the 
beginning  give  evidence  of  wonderful  transformations, 
and  have  a  very  beautiful  experience,  yet,  taking  men 
collectively,  you  are  to  judge  of  them,  not  by  what 
they  say  when  they  are  catechized  and  taught  what 
to  say  ;  but  by  what  you  know,  looking  at  them  with 
perceiving  eyes  and  with  understanding  hearts,  to  be 
the  actual  condition  of  their  inward  state  of  mind. 
I  know  that  persons  who  have  been  brought  up  in  the 
nurture  and  admonition  of  the  Lord  by  Christian  par- 
ents, whose  house  has  been  a  church,  and  whose  daily 
life  has  been  almost  that  of  a  catechumen,  may  be 
brought  into  a  full  disclosure  of  Christian  life,  wdth 
phenomena  which  will  be  ripe  and  ample ;  but  often 
these  persons  were  converted  from  the  cradle.  They 
were  trained  in  their  will,  as  well  as  in  their  other 
faculties,  into  Christian  living,  so  that  when  the  dis- 
closure comes  it  is  like  the  unveiling  of  a  statue  on 


248 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


a  public  square.  To  the  great  mass  it  seems  to  have 
sprung  into  being  then  and  there ;  while,  in  reality,  it 
has  been  the  work  of  the  chisel  and  the  mallet  for 
months,  and,  it  may  be,  through  years.  The  disclosure 
is  sudden,  but  the  formation  was  not. 

The  seed-form  of  experience  is  enough,  therefore,  on 
which  to  encourage  a  man  to  say,  I  am  a  beginning- 
Christian."  If  men  are  afraid  to  say,  1  am  a  Chris- 
tian," because  they  cannot  stand  all  the  tests  of  Chris- 
tianity, let  them  modify  their  statement,  and  say,  not, 
"  I  am  beginning  to  be  a  Christian,"  which  might  in- 
volve some  absurdity,  but  "  I  am  a  beginning-Christian. 
I  have  begun  to  be  a  Christian."  How  far  have  you 
gone  ?  Have  you  renounced  all  sin  ?  Woe  be  to  that 
man  who  should  dare  to  say  "Yes"  to  that  question. 
No  man  can  tell  what  he  has  renounced  of  unborn 
things.  No  man  can  say,  I  have  cleansed  my  heart 
in  innocency,"  in  any  modern  philosophical  sense  of 
that  expression.  But  as  I  understand  it,  and  accord- 
ing to  my  conception  of  sinfulness,  he  can  say,  I  have 
made  up  my  mind  to  abandon  sin." 

You  will  usually  find  that,  to  men  of  low  and  rude 
culture,  sin  is  some  one  or  two  objective  things,  and 
their  renunciation  of  sin  will  be  mostly  in  regard  to 
those  distinct  offenses.  Higher  than  these,  is  a  grade 
of  men  to  whom  sin  is  not  only  a  series  of  acts,  but 
a  principle  from  which  such  series  of  acts  have  an  out- 
flow ;  in  their  case  there  will  be  a  larger  and  broader 
renunciation  of  sin :  but  this  larger  and  broader  one 
is  not  to  discountenance  the  smaller  and  narrower 
one. 


THE  GROWTH  OF  CHRISTIAN  LIFE. 


249 


BEGINNING-CHRISTIANS. 

A  man  who  has,  according  to  his  conception  of  right 
and  wrong,  chosen  sides,  and  said,  "  By  the  help  of 
God  I  am  going  to  do  right;  I  mean  to  look  to  the 
Lord  Jesus  Christ,  and  to  judge  by  his  example  and 
commandments  of  what  is  right  and  wrong  for  me,"  — 
such  a  man,  I  hold,  has  begun  a  Christian  life.  He 
is  a  beginning-Christian.  That  which  is  abundant  for 
the  seed-time  in  the  spring  would  be  considered  very 
poor  for  the  harvest-time  in  the  autumn;  and  that 
w^hich  is  enough  to  begin  this  end  of  Christian  life 
with  would  be  far  from  satisfactory  at  the  other  end 
of  Christian  life.  It  is  a  great  deal  better  that  a  man 
should  begin,  as  Christ  puts  it,  like  a  grain  of  mustard- 
seed,  and  go  on  growing  through  his  life,  rising  and 
rising,  as  one  ascends  on  an  inclined  plane,  than  that 
he  should  suddenly  burst  into  Christian  life  with  an 
affluence  of  experience,  and  with  choral  joy,  and  then 
go  sliding  down  the  other  way  through  the  rest  of 
his  life. 

I  am  not  disinclined  to  look  with  favor  upon  the 
dramatic  experience  of  which  I  shall  speak  in  a  mo- 
ment ;  but  we  are  to  be  as  little  children  in  the  Chris- 
tian life,  and  the  evidences  of  Christian  life  may  begin 
with  childlike  experiences.  I  regard  it  as  vastly  im- 
portant that  this  should  be  recognized  in  your  minis- 
try ;  because  I  think  that  multitudes  of  men,  for  lack 
of  a  recognition  of  it,  are  lost,  —  that  is,  that  they  stay 
away  from  the  church  and  from  God's  people,  and  live 
an  undisclosed  life,  or  a  partially  developed  Christian 
life,  all  the  rest  of  their  days;  whereas,  if  they  had 
11* 


250 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


been  taken  by  the  hand,  and  it  had  been  said  to  them : 
"  You  are  a  babe  in  Christ  Jesus,  but,  being  a  babe, 
you  have  the  seminal  forms  of  manhopd  in  Christ 
Jesus  which  you  must  bring  forth  and  unfold,  and  carry 
on  and  up ;  you  are  a  learner  in  the  school  of  Christ, 
you  are  in  the  primary  class,  and  you  are  to  rise  up 
througli  all  the  lower  stages  to  graduation/'  —  they 
might  have  been  saved. 

INFANCY  NEEDS  PROTECTION. 

You  must  not  mistake  my  meaning,  and  suppose 
that  I  bring  Christian  character  and  worldly  character 
so  near  together  that  the  point  of  distinction  between 
them  in  their  ideal  forms  is  very  slight. 

Nothing  can  be  more  different  from  the  natural 
character  (that  is,  the  unfolded  nature  of  man)  under 
the  influences  of  this  world,  and  the  nature  of  man 
developed  under  the  influences  of  the  Lord  Jesus 
Christ.  But  I  say  that  the  beginning  of  that  tran- 
scendent character  which  we  call  Christian  is  very  small 
and  very  feeble,  and  that  you  are  to  accept  that  begin- 
ning in  the  hope  of  the  disclosure  and  the  ending. 

I  therefore  feel,  when  men  have  come  to  the  evi- 
dence of  being  converted,  that  the  throwing  them  off 
and  making  them  wait,  and  refusing  to  admit  them 
either  into  the  church  or  into  a  probationary  class,  is 
unwise.  Some  ministers  are  in  the  habit  of  saying. 
If  this  is  the  work  of  God,  it  will  stand,  and  there 
is  no  danger  of  waiting ;  and  if  it  is  not  the  work  of 
God,  they  had  better  be  undeceived  "  ;  but  I  feel  that 
this  is  not  the  true  way  to  proceed.  It  is  as  if  a  man 
should  take  a  new-born  babe,  and  lay  it  out  of  doors, 


THE  GROWTH  OF  CHRISTIAN  LIFE. 


251 


and  say,  "Now,  if  this  child  lives  till  morning,  why, 
it  will  be  worth  our  while  to  take  care  of  it ;  but  if  it 
does  not,  there  is  no  use  of  trying  to  do  anything  with 
it."  When  is  it  that  a  child  needs  succor,  if  not  in 
the  time  of  its  absolute  helplessness  ?  And  where  is  it 
that  man  needs  the  most  instruction  and  culture  and 
shelter,  if  not  at  that  point  where  the  kingdom  of  God 
is  as  a  spark  of  fire,  or  as  a  bruised  reed.  The  reed 
grows  tall  and  slim,  and.  is  so  tremulous  that  it  can 
hardly  stand  up  ;  and  some  wild  animal,  having  passed 
by,  has  bruised  it ;  it  still  stands  weakly,  but  so  tender 
is  the  heart  of  God  that,  reaching  forth,  this  bruised 
reed  he  will  not  break  nor  even  bend.  And  he  will 
not  quench  the  smoking  flax.  That  little  point  of 
flame,  which  burns  blue  and  red,  and  rises  and  falls, 
and  rises  and  falls,  and  seems  ready  to  go  out,  on  the 
top  of  the  expiring  wick,  he  will  not  extinguish.  He 
says,  "  I  will  move  so  gently  that  the  feeblest  flame 
shall  not  be  quenched ;  and  thus  tenderly  and  gently 
will  I  deal  with  the  souls  of  men." 

"  A  bruised  reed  shall  he  not  break,  and  smoking  flax  shall 
he  not  quench,  until  he  send  forth  judgment  unto  victory." 

So  you  are  to  take  the  sparks  and  first  beginnings  of 
Christian  development,  and  shelter  them,  and  nourish 
them,  and  protect  them,  until  you  bring  forth  judg- 
ment unto  victory,  —  until  you  produce  a  Christian 
character  which  overcomes  the  world. 

THE  FIRST  STEP. 

Now,  the  theory  of  the  New  Testament,  —  if  it  have 
a  theory,  —  at  all  events  the  practice  of  the  New  Testa- 


252 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


ment,  seems  to  me  to  have  been  this  :  to  bring  men 
first,  promptly,  to  a  renunciation  of  every  known  wrong 
thing  ;  to  the  resolution,  "  I  will  break  off  my  sins." 
That  was  significant  everywhere,  as  the  very  first  step. 
Having  taken  that  step,  men  were  brought  to  an  imme- 
diate beginning  of  the  higher  and  better  life.  The 
philosophy  which  lies  at  the  root  of  that  life  is  this  : 
Such  is  the  nature  of  Christian  living  that  the  moment 
a  man  begins  to  interpret  it  practically,  it  instructs  him 
in  that  which  he  in  no  other  way  can  learn  so  well. 

First,  the  great  principle  of  Christian  life  is  disinter- 
ested benevolence,  —  love  to  God  and  love  to  man. 
Now,  undertake  to  live  according  to  that  principle. 
Let  him  that  stole,  steal  no  more ;  let  him  that 
drank,  drink  no  more  ;  let  him  that  was  licentious,  be 
licentious  no  more ;  let  him  that  railed,  rail  no  more  ; 
and  let  him  that  quarreled,  quarrel  no  more.  Let  all 
known  sins  be  broken  off.  Say  to  yourself,  I  will 
follow  Christ "  ;  and  begin  to  follow  him.  When  you 
are  reviled,  revile  not  again.  If  you  do  not  learn  what 
patience  is  in  trying  to  fulfill  that  purpose,  I  do  not 
know  how  you  can  learn  it.  If  that  is  not  a  better 
sermon  than  any  you  could  hear  preached,  I  am  mis- 
taken. Let  a  man  pierce  you  in  the  tenderest  place 
with  injurious  words,  when  you  have  it.  in  your  power 
to  blast  him  like  lightning,  and  do  you  stand  still  and 
say  nothing ;  and  if  that  will  not  teach  you  patience, 
then  I  see  not  how  it  can  be  taught  to  you.  You  are, 
say,  in  business  ;  now  let  a  man,  in  a  place  where  your 
very  credit  is  at  stake,  and  at  a  time  when  your  whole 
commercial  fabric  is  in  jeopardy,  with  mildew  lips  de- 
stroy your  reputation,  and  let  it  be  reported  to  you,  and 


TEE  GROWTH  OF  CHRISTIAN  LIFE. 


253 


do  you  listen  to  the  voice  of  Christ,  that  says,  "  Pray 
for  him,  and  love  him,"  —  and  see  whether  you  will  not 
grow  in  patience.  If  it  were  an  abstract  proposition, 
in  the  conference-room,  0,  yes,  you  could  do  it ;  but 
when  to-morrow  you  meet  the  directors  of  your  com- 
pany, and  the  first  man  turns  the  cold  shoulder  to  you, 
and  then  the  next  man,  and  then  the  next,  and  you  see 
that  your  detractor  has  struck  you  to  kill,  and  you 
have  it  in  your  power  to  disclose  something  that  shall 
kill  him,  and  you  say,  "  I  have  set  out  to  follow  Christ ; 
he  reviled  not  again,  and  I  must  follow  him,  and  I  will 
follow  him,  though  it  kill  me,"  —  do  you  not  suppose 
that  that  experience  will  open  in  you  a  knowledge 
of  the  sinfulness  and  temptation  of  the  human  heart? 
Though  before  then  you  had  not  known  much  about  sin 
and  the  temptations  to  sin,  when  you  had  seen  its  inter- 
pretation under  such  provocation  would  you  not  know 
something  about  it  ?  In  all  his  wrestling  with  the 
world,  let  a  man  say,  "  I  hold  myself  accountable  to 
my  fellow-men  for  the  light  of  my  reason."  Let  him 
say,  "  I  hold  myself  not  to  have  received  this  shining 
imagination  of  mine  to  make  sparks  fly  for  men  to  look 
at,  but  to  be  employed  as  an  opalescent  light  for  the 
comfort  of  others."  Let  him  say,  "  I  am  strong,  not 
that  I  may  wrap  my  cloak  about  me,  and  walk  my  own 
way,  but  that  I  may  help  weak  people  to  gain  a  sense 
of  the  new  life."  Let  him  say,  "  I  am  to  give  myself 
for  men,  living,  as  Christ  gave  himself  for  men,  living 
and  dying." 

Introduce  a  man  into  this  school  of  Christ,  and  let 
him  undertake  to  obey  the  Divine  commands  in  his 
business  or  calling  during  the  day,  and  he  will  come 


254 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


back  at  night,  and  say,  "  I  have  failed/'  He  will  feel, 
as  all  early  scholars  in  that  school  must,  that  he  has 
an  imperfect  lesson.  But  you  encourage  him,  and  say, 
"  Where  you  failed  to-day,  you  may  succeed  to-mor- 
row." And  to-morrow  perhaps  he  does  succeed  where 
he  has  failed  to-day  ;  but  sin  breaks  out  somewhere 
else  in  his  experience.  So  he  goes  on,  little  by  little, 
in  his  endeavor  to  lead  a  Christian  life ;  but  he  is  made 
to  feel,  to  know,  to  painfully  realize,  how  little  he  can 
do  of  that  which  he  knows  he  ought  to  do,  without 
Divine  help  ;  and  he  appeals  for  help  ;  and  the  prayers 
of  such  men  under  such  circumstances  come  up  to  the 
throne  of  grace  with  an  ardor  which  is  irresistible,  and 
God  hears  them.  No  man  can  go  through  Christ's 
school  in  that  way  without  being  convinced  that  he 
has  need  in  his  inward  life. 

VIVID  EXPERIENCES  EXCEPTIONAL. 

Then,  in  advocating  this  mode  of  looking  at  men, 
and  introducing  them  into  the  Christian  course,  the 
question  would  naturally  come  up,  "  Do  you  set  aside 
all  dramatic  experiences  ? "  No,  I  do  not,  at  all !  So 
far  from  it,  I  look  at  them  with  admiration.  I  do  not 
wonder  that  people  covet  them.  I  strove  after  them 
long  enough,  but  I  never  got  them.  And  at  last  I 
learned  to  say,  "  If  it  please  God,  in  the  exercise  of  Di- 
vine sovereignty,  to  bring  a  man  into  a  Christian  life 
in  a  way  conformable  to  his  foregoing  history,  to  his 
temperament,  and  to  the  laws  that  regulate  him,  who 
am  I  that  I  should  call  God's  orthodoxy  in  question  ? 
Has  he  not  a  right  to  call  men  in  any  way  that  suits 
him  ? "    And  if  a  man  is  of  such  a  nature,  if  he  has 


THE  GROWTH  OF  CHRISTIAN  LIFE.  255 


sensibility  such  that  he  has  been  carried  through  devi- 
ous paths,  and  is  brought  at  last  into  such  contingencies 
that  all  at  once  there  is,  by  reason  of  the  instruction 
which  he  has  received,  and  by  reason  of  the  peculiarity 
of  his  organization,  an  intense  conception,  an  inlooking 
sense  by  which  is  revealed  to  him,  not  simply  the  sin- 
fulness of  his  actions,  but  the  sinfulness  of  his  nature ; 
if  he  is  made  to  feel  the  amplitude  of  sin  in  him  ;  if  he 
wrestles  with  the  consciousness  that  God  is  not  in  all 
his  thoughts,  that  his  soul  hates  God,  and  that  he  will 
not  have  God  to  reign  over  him ;  and  if,  in  that 
mighty  wrestling,  more  wonderful  in  the  darkness  of 
his  soul  than  Jacob's  wrestling  in  the  darkness  of  the 
night  with  the  angel  of  God,  he  is  at  last  conscious 
that  there  is  some  bright,  shooting,  electric  flash  visible 
before  him  which  gives  him  a  sudden  sense  of  the 
beauty  of  God  in  Christ,  of  the  majesty  of  the  Divine 
government,  and  of  the  grandeur  of  the  Christian  life ; 
and  if  there  springs  up  in  him  an  impulse  to  rejoice 
and  glorify  God, —  do  you  ask  me  if  I  believe  that  his 
experience  has  no  validity  ?  It  is  admirable  !  It  is 
beautiful ! 

But  this  I  say  (as  I  shall  show  more  at  length  at  the 
end  of  the  lecture,  if  I  ever  get  to  it),  that  you  are  not 
to  judge  all  experiences  by  special  ones.  You  might 
as  well  say,  having  read  one  of  Milton's  outbursts  of 
the  highest  kind,  "  Now,  I  will  not  call  anything  in  lit- 
erature good  unless  it  is  as  fine  as  that,"  as  to  say  that 
you  will  not  recognize  anything  as  conversion  which 
does  not  go  as  high  as  those  experiences  of  which  I 
have  been  speaking.  I  say  that  these  are  exceptional 
cases  ;  and  they  are  genuine,  as  poets  are  genuine  ;  but 


256 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


everybody  is  not  a  poet.  They  are  genuine,  as  invent- 
ors are  genuine;  but  everybody  is  not  an  inventor. 
You  are  not  to  judge  of  the  whole  in  this  matter  by 
single  instances. 

THE  POINT  OF  CHANGE. 

You  will,  then,  perhaps  ask  me,  "  Is  not  this  the 
doctrine  of  '  gradualism '  ?  Do  not  you  believe  in 
preaching  '  immediatism  '  ?  "  With  all  my  heart  I  do. 
I  believe  in  immediate  decisions,  I  believe  in  immedi- 
ate beginnings  ;  but  immediatism  is  simply  a  checking 
or  stoppage  from  going  in  one  direction,  and  beginning 
to  go  in  another. 

Did  you  ever  see  a  vessel  on  the  East  Eiver  beating 
against  the  wind,  and  turning  when  it  was  about  half- 
way across  ?  The  helm  is  put  down,  and  the  sails 
begin  to  shiver,  and  soon  they  become  loose,  so  that 
they  catch  no  wind  ;  and  the  craft  is  going  on  and 
going  round,  Uttle  by  little,  until,  by  and  by,  first  the 
jib  takes  the  wind  ;  the  craft  still  goes  on  and  round, 
until  finally  the  mainsail  takes  the  wind  ;  and  then, 
with  every  sail  full  and  drawing,  off  goes  the  vessel  on 
the  other  tack.  And  unquestionably  there  was  a  defi- 
nite point  of  time  when  she  stopped  going  in  one  direc- 
tion and  commenced  going  in  the  other.  You  might 
not  be  able  to  mark  it ;  but  you  know  that,  philosophi- 
cally, it  must  be  so. 

Where  a  man  is  going  toward  wrong  heartily,  and  he 
is  converted,  there  must  be  a  time  when  he  stops,  and 
means  to  stop  ;  for  nobody  ever  changes  his  course 
from  wrong  to  right  by  accident.  There  must  be  a 
time  when  he  moves,  or  attempts  to  move,  in  the  other 


THE  GROWTH  OF  CHRISTIAN  LIFE.  257 

direction,  no  matter  whether  he  can  tell  what  that  time 
is  or  not,  and  no  matter  whether  there  was  any  great 
convulsion  in  his  experience  or  not.  There  is,  in  the 
case  of  every  man  who  reforms  his  life,  a  point  of 
time  at  which  he  ceases  to  go  in  one  direction  and  be- 
gins to  go  in  the  other  direction.  There  is  the  princi- 
ple of  immediatism  involved  in  every  man's  conver- 
sion ;  and  those  who  are  walking  in  the  ways  of  sin 
should  be  abundantly  plied  to  stop  at  once,  and  at 
once  to  begin  to  walk  in  the  other  direction,  as  the 
first  step  toward  entering  upon  a  better  life,  —  and  for 
this  reason  :  that  what  are  called  "  resolutions  "  are  not 
choices ;  they  are  simply  step-stones  to  choices.  That  is 
a  resolution  where  a  man  accepts  an  end  without  any 
reference  to  how  it  shall  be  accomplished.  That  is  a 
choice  where  a  man  accepts  an  end,  and  employs  all 
the  instruments  within  his  reach  for  the  accomplish- 
ment of  it.  One  is  without  instrumentality,  and  the 
other  is  with  instrumentality.  Therefore  resolutions 
wither,  while  choices  hold  steadfastly.  And  you  are, 
by  all  the  means  in  your  power,  to  bring  men,  not 
merely  to  vague  resolutions,  not  merely  to  wistfulness, 
not  merely  to  wish  that  they  were  Christians.  I  sup- 
pose there  never  was  a  man  in  the  world,  brought  up 
with  ordinary  morality,  that  did  not  wish  that  he  was 
a  Christian.  There  never  was  a  beggar  in  the  world, 
probably,  that  did  not  wish  that  he  was  rich  enough  to 
make  it  needless  for  him  to  beg.  There  never  was  a 
lazy  man  who  did  not  wish  that  he  was  industrious. 
There  never  was  a  drunkard  who  did  not  wish  that  he 
was  temperate.  There  never  was  a  man  who  had  lost 
his  reputation  that  did  not  wish  that  he  was  reputable. 

Q 


258 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


There  never  was  a  man  of  any  sort  who  did  not  wish 
for  something  better.  But  wishing  is  invalid.  Choos- 
ing is  the  thing. 

URGENCY  FOR  DECISION. 

Now,  when  you  see  men  set  in  upon  from  every  side ; 
when  you  see  how  everything  is  working  on  them  con- 
tinually ;  when  you  see  how  strong  are  the  tendencies 
of  business ;  when  you  see  what  rivalries  there  are  in 
the  spheres  of  ingenuity  and  industry;  when  you  see 
what  vast  pressures  are  brought  to  bear  on  men  by  the 
love  of  wife  and  children,  and  by  their  companionships, 
congenial  and  otherwise  ;  when  you  see  how  the  great 
round  globe  is  filled  with  all  manner  of  the  most  stim- 
ulating forces,  which  are  molding  and  shaping  the 
lives  of  men  ;  when  you  see  that  while,  on  one  day  of 
the  week,  their  attention  is  called  to  higher  themes  and 
they  form  purposes  of  right  living,  the  other  six  days, 
like  six  squadrons,  come  down  upon  them  and  sweep 
all  those  purposes  away,  —  under  such  circumstances,  it 
is  necessary  that  you,  as  ministers  of  Christ,  charged 
with  the  care  of  men's  souls,  should  concentrate  every 
influence  possible  to  bring  them  to  an  immediate  de- 
cision. 

But  it  should  be  borne  in  mind  that  an  immediate 
decision  to  do  right  is  not  an  immediate  formation  of 
a  right  character.  The  preparations  for  a  decision, 
and  the  consequences  of  choice,  may  be  to  any  extent 
gradual ;  but  the  choice  itself,  the  subscribing  of  one's 
name  on  the  roll  of  Christ,  the  writing  of  it  where  it 
shall  not  be  effaced  in  this  world, —  this  should  and  will 
be  instantaneous. 


THE  GROWTH  OF  CHRISTIAN  LIFE. 


259 


EARNEST  PREACHING. 

I  know  that  persons  often  think  there  is  a  want  of 
dignity  in  this  commanding  men  to  repent ;  that  there 
is  in  it  a  lack  of  respect  for  persons'  individuality ;  that 
it  would  be  better  if  you  should  bring  your  sermon  as  a 
bundle  of  thoughts,  and  lay  it  down  at  men'a  feet,  and 
leave  them  to  exercise  their  own  free  agency  as  to 
whether  they  shall  accept  your  teaching  or  not.  It  is 
thought  to  be  scarcely  dignified  and  philosophical  to 
spread  out  the  cool  and  calm  considerations  of  duty 
before  a  congregation. 

To  act  upon  the  course  which  is  implied  by  these  ob- 
jections would  be  exactly  as  though  a  general,  dead 
in  earnest,  should  send  a  w^heelbarrowful  of  rifle-balls 
across  his  line  to  the  enemy,  and  say,  "  We  do  not 
intend  to  fire  at  you ;  please  kill  yourselves  with  these 
balls  !  " 

For  what  is  a  preacher  ordained  ?  Christ  says  :  "  Fol- 
low me,  and  I  will  make  you  fishers  of  men."  I  think 
I  see  one  of  these  dilettante  men,  one  of  these  modern 
eunuchs  of  sermons,  who  sits  and  w^alks  before  his  con- 
gregation in  such  a  way  as  not  to  disturb  their  equa- 
nimity, or  to  force  upon  them  any  considerations  which 
are  not  agreeable  to  them.  I  can  imagine  one  of  them 
going  forth,  and  sitting  down  on  the  bank  of  the  stream 
where  trout  are  to  be  found,  and  saying  to  them,  "  0 
trout !  here  am  I,  and  here  is  my  basket ;  please  come 
forth,  in  the  exercise  of  your  trout  nature,  and  get  into 
it "  ;  and  I  can  imagine  him  to  go  back  home  again,  and 
say,  "  Pleasant  was  the  meadow,  and  pearly  was  the 
stream,  but  the  fish  were  proud,  and  signified  their  in- 


260 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


tention  not  to  come  forth ;  and  I  respect  their  indi- 
viduality." For  my  part,  I  do  not  believe  in  the 
manliness  of  any  such  mode  of  preaching  the  gospel. 
It  comes  from  the  effeminate  philosophy  of  an  effete 
manhood.  I  believe  in  downright  power ;  and  if  God 
gave  it  to  you,  exercise  it.  I  believe  that  I  have  as 
much  right  to  bombard  your  hearts  as  ever  Grant  had 
to  bombard  Petersburg,  by  the  artillery  which  I  can 
bring  to  bear  upon  them  through  the  reason,  through 
the  moral  sense,  through  the  aesthetic  or  the  beautiful, 
through  taste,  through  any  faculty  which  belongs  to 
human  nature.  It  is  fair  play.  My  purpose  is  as  noble 
as  that  which  any  man  can  have.  No  historic  hero  has 
such  a  purpose  as  every  Christian  minister  has  ;  for 
when  empires  fall  and  thrones  crumble,  souls  will  live. 
When  all  literature  is  gone,  when  the  memorials  of 
Westminster  are  forgotten,  when  everything  in  this 
world  is  swept  into  oblivion,  God  will  live  to  rescue 
man  from  destruction,  and  bring  him  home  to  eternal 
glory.  If  a  man's  whole  thought  is  of  the  cold  pages 
of  Cambridge-printed  books,  that  is  one  thing ;  but  if 
his  thought  is  of  heaven,  immortality,  and  God  re- 
vealed in  Christ,  then  I  tell  you  he  had  better  be  in 
earnest,  or  he  had  better  be  out  of  the  pulpit. 

GRADUAL  CONCESSION. 

But  it  will  be  asked,  Is  there  no  place  for  gradual- 
ism, then  ? "  Yes,  there  is  a  place  for  gradualism,  if 
you  choose  to  call  it  so.  There  is  that  which  will  have 
the  effect,  at  any  rate,  of  gradualism.  I  mean  simply 
this :  that  I  believe,  very  thoroughly,  in  such  an  early 
conversion,  or  such  an  early  turning  to  God,  that  you 


THE  GROWTH  OF  CHRISTIAN  LIFE.  261 


can  hardly  call  it  the  action  of  the  will,  though  it  is 
that.  When  the  outer  umbilical  cord  is  cut,  the  inner 
one  is  not  cut ;  and  after  the  child  is  born,  it  feeds  from 
the  mother's  soul  through  years  and  years,  as  before  it 
was  born  it  fed  from  her  veins.  A  child  that  is  of  a 
devout  and  loving  nature,  brought  up  at  the  knee  of  a 
devout  and  loving  mother,  is  early  inclined  to  God ;  and  it 
is  so  trained  in  the  nurture  and  admonition  of  the  Lord, 
that  it  never  knows,  and  never  ought  to  know,  the  time 
when  it  did  not  sweetly  think  of  God,  and  attempt  to 
conform  itself  to  the  pattern  of  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ. 
If  you  can  begin  with  a  child,  and  train  it  in  right 
ways  while  its  experiences  are  yet  nascent,  while  it 
wills  through  the  mother's  will,  and  thinks  through  the 
mother's  thought,  by  and  by  it  comes  to  a  point  where  it 
cannot  distinguish  between  what  is  itself  and  what  is 
her  influence.  If  you  can  bring  up  a  child  in  that  way, 
it  grows  year  by  year,  step  by  step,  and  becomes  a 
Christian,  though  no  one  can  tell  precisely  when  the  re- 
generating change  took  place. 

I  have  seen  persons  of  the  most  beautiful  life,  of  a 
transparent  disposition,  Christ-like,  devout,  and  having 
every  attribute  of  true  Christian  character,  come  before 
the  Examining  Committee  of  my  church.  I  had  on  that 
committee  good,  most  excellent  men  ;  but  they  had  been 
trained  in  the  old-fashioned  way  of  questioning  candi- 
dates for  church  membership.  I  recollect  a  man  (he  is 
in  heaven  now,  and  I  have  no  doubt  that  he  has  laughed 
at  himself  before  this)  who  invariably  put  this  inquiry, 
"Do  you  remember  the  time  when  you  felt  hatred 
toward  God  ?  "  I  have  seen  persons  start  up,  and  say, 
in  reply  to  that  question,  "  Why,  no,  sir  ! "    They  were 


262 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


scared.  They  remember  the  time  when  they  felt  hatred 
toward  God  !  But  this  man  never  could  be  made  to 
think  that  genuine  work  had  been  wrought  in  persons 
who  had  not  gone  through  that  peculiar  experience. 

I  can  conceive  that  a  man  who  has  grown  unre- 
strained, and  developed  self-will  in  a  feeling  of  inde- 
pendence, has  thrown  off  the  claims  of  God,  resisting 
them  with  strong  passions  and  animal  forces,  —  I  can 
conceive  how  such  a  man,  when  at  last  those  claims 
were  brought  home  to  him,  and  the  terrible  consequences 
of  his  course  were  revealed  to  him,  so  that  a  great 
struggle  was  produced  in  him,  he  neither  being  able  to 
let  religion  go  nor  to  submit  to  its  requirements,  —  I 
can  conceive  how  he  might  have  developed  in  him,  not 
only  a  conscious  resistance  to  God!s  will,  but  defiance 
of  God.  But  how  one  who  has  been  brought  up  at  his 
mother's  knee ;  whose  earliest  years  were  years  of  love 
to  Christ  Jesus ;  whose  every  thought  has  been  ad- 
dressed to  the  subject  of  right  and  wrong,  and  who  has 
constantly  endeavored  to  avoid  the  wrong  and  to  do  the 
right ;  who  has  invariably  asked  himself  what  Christ 
would  think ;  who  has  been  reared  from  childhood  in 
the  nurture  and  admonition  of  the  Lord,  —  how  such  a 
saint  could  be  supposed  to  remember  having  ever  felt 
hatred  toward  God  I  cannot  understand ;  and  to  put 
such  a  question  to  such  a  one  is  a  desecration  of  the 
temple  of  the  Holy  Ghost. 

So  that  it  is  as  easy  for  persons  to  be  converted  and 
not  know  it,  as  it  is  for  you  to  pass  from  one  kingdom 
to  another  in  the  night,  and  not  know  it.  There  is  a 
heavy  snow-storm  in  winter,  and  the  fences  are  all 
obliterated,  and  there  are  no  visible  boundaries  be- 


THE  GROWTH  OF  CHRISTIAN  LIFE. 


263 


tween  farm  and  farm,  and  a  man  starts  out  and  goes 
to  the  house  of  a  neighbor ;  he  does  not  know  when  he 
passes  that  point  which  separates  between  his  ground 
and  that  neighbor's. 

THE  USE  OF  FEELING. 

But  you  say,  "  Do  you  suppose  that  a  person  can  go 
into  the  Christian  life  as  easy  as  that  ?  Must  there  not 
be  feeling  ? "  Well,  certainly  ;  but  I  beg  you  to  under- 
stand that  the  function  of  right  feeling  in  life  is  to 
incite  persons  to  right  courses.  In  and  of  itself  it  has 
no  value,  unless  it  be  to  produce  happiness  in  men,  or 
right  conduct  leading  to  happiness. 

How  much  feeling,  then,  must  a  man  have  ?  Just  as 
much  as  is  necessary.  How  much  steam  must  a  little 
yacht  have  ?  J ust  as  much  as  will  turn  the  machinery 
and  propel  the  hull.  But  the  steam  required  by  that 
yacht  would  not  be  a  thimbleful  for  an  ocean  steamer 
of  five  thousand  tons.  How  much  must  that  steamer 
have  ?  Enough  to  turn  its  ponderous  machinery.  How 
much  feeling  must  a  man  have  ?  Enough  to  turn  him 
from  wrong  to  right.  All  beyond  what  is  required  for 
that  is  surplusage. 

I  build  a  mill  on  the  river  Bantam,  where  I  caught 
my  first  fish  ;  and  all  the  year  round  that  river  supplies 
the  motive-power  which  is  necessary  to  propel  the  wheel 
of  that  mill,  and  it  turns  and  grinds  continually  ;  but 
suppose  I  should  build  my  mill  on  the  river  Amazon, 
would  I  be  any  better  off  ?  No  ;  for  I  have  all  the  water 
that  the  mill  wants  in  the  Bantam ;  and  all  that  the 
Amazon  had  more  than  that  would  be  waste,  and  would 
not  do  the  least  particle  of  good, 


264  LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 

All  that  feeling  is  good  for  is  to  produce  motion.  It 
is  motive-power.  It  is  impulse.  But  persons  have  an 
impression  that  it  has  a  certain  kind  of  cleansing  power, 
so  that  if  a  man  is  aroused  to  a  sense  of  his  sinfulness, 
and  is  steeped  in  it,  there  is  some  sort  of  an  effect  like 
that  which  is  produced  when  yarn  is  put  into  the  dye- 
vat,  where  it  must  be  allowed  to  soak,  and  soak,  in 
order  to  have  the  colors  strike  through.  Men  seem  to 
think  that  conviction  is  a  vat,  and  that  the  sinner  must 
soak  in  it  for  an  indefinite  period,  in  order  to  be  thor- 
oughly converted. 

But  this  is  a  mistake.  I  will  give  an  instance  which 
will  illustrate  what  I  mean. 

A  strong  man  in  Ohio,  a  lawyer  of  repute  and  an 
infidel,  went  to  the  nearest  county  seat  on  court  busi- 
ness. While  there,  he  went  to  spend  an  evening  with 
an  old  friend,  a  farmer,  and  a  member  of  the  church. 
When  the  hour  for  retiring  came,  the  farmer  thought 
in  himself,  "  This  man  is  one  of  the  greatest  geniuses 
in  the  State  ;  and  I  know  his  opinions  ;  how  can  I 
read  and  pray  in  his  presence  ? But  he  felt  it  to  be 
his  duty ;  so,  with  fear  and  trembling,  he  took  down 
his  Bible,  and  said  to  the  man, "  It  is  our  time  for  even- 
ing worship,  will  you  join  with  us  ?  "  Now,  this  man, 
although  he  was  an  unbeliever,  was  a  gentleman,  and 
he  expressed  himself  pleased  to  unite  with  the  family 
in  their  religious  exercises.  The  farmer  read,  with  a 
tremulous  voice,  a  chapter ;  and  then  knelt  down,  half 
scared,  and  prayed,  not  knowing  whether  he  was  pray- 
ing to  God,  or  whether  he  was  praying  away  from  the 
lawyer.  He  got  through  the  service,  however,  although 
it  cost  him  a  severe  effort ;  but  the  effect  on  the  lawyer 


THE  GROWTH  OF  CHRISTIAN  LIFE. 


265 


was  powerful.  He  said  to  himself,  "  I  know  this  man, 
and  he  knows  me ;  and  he  never  would  have  done  this 
if  he  had  not  had  a  conviction  that  it  was  his  duty.  He 
had  no  purpose  to  gain  ;  he  sacrificed  his  feelings  by- 
doing  it.  There  must  be  something  in  religion  to  enable 
a  man  to  do  such  a  thing."  And  the  more  he  thought 
of  it,  the  more  his  spiritual  sense  was  opened  ;  and  as 
there  was  a  revival  being  held  in  the  place,  he  went  to 
one  of  the  conference-meetings ;  and  at  the  close  he 
stood  up  and  declared  that  Clod  had  illuminated  his 
mind,  and  that  he  was  resolved  from  that  time  forth 
to  live  a  Christian  life.  He  had  not  gone  through 
any  tremendous  wrestling  or  feeling ;  he  was  con- 
scious of  on  great  swelling  gulf-stream  that  was  sweep- 
ing him  to  damnation;  he  had  no  such  experience 
as  persons  who  have  purposely  lived  wicked  lives 
often  have ;  but  do  you  not  think  that  he  had  feeling 
enough  ? 

Let  me  put  it  in  another  way.  Many  men  mourn  that 
they  have  not  had  a  fearful  experience.  They  think 
they  are  shallow  Christians  because  they  have  never 
had  such  a  sense  of  sinfulness  as  they  hear  other  people 
talk  of. 

Here  are  my  two  boys.  Both  of  them  have  been 
quarreling,  and  they  have  both  in  their  quarrel  done 
great  injustice  to  some  neighbor's  children.  I  bring  in 
the  older  one,  and  he  denies  it.  I  convict  him,  after  a 
great  deal  of  wrangling.  He  stands  out  against  my  per- 
suasion. He  will  not  confess  his  fault.  Finally,  after 
much  threatening  and  whipping,  I  subdue  him,  and 
bring  him  to  a  confession  and  to  a  promise. 

The  other  boy  comes  in,  and  I  say,    My  son,  such 

VOL.  III.  12 


266  LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 

and  such  things  are  said  in  respect  to  you."  He  begins 
to  blush  the  moment  I  commence  to  speak  ;  and  as  soon 
as  he  hears  me  through,  or  before  I  am  done  with  my 
statement,  the  tears  roll  down  his  cheeks,  and  he  says, 
"  Father,  it  is  true,  and  I  am  ashamed  of  myself.  I  did 
what  I  am  accused  of,  and  I  am  thoroughly  sorry  for 
it."    And  that  is  the  last  of  it. 

Now,  I  want  to  know  which  of  these  two  brothers 
has  had  the  best  time,  which  has  acted  the  most  hon- 
orably, which  is  the  most  manly,  and  which  gives  token 
of  the  greatest  moral  health  ?  And  yet  there  are  many 
persons  who  think  that  there  is  a  great  advantage  in 
being  put  into  a  caldron  of  conviction,  and  bubbling  and 
boiling  and  stewing  there,  and  that  they  are  good  Chris- 
tians in  proportion  as  they  are  mean,  and  refuse  to  sub- 
mit to  magnanimity  and  honor  and  manhood. 

The  moment  right  and  wrong  are  made  clear  to  a 
man,  the  moment  he  sees  the  celestial  life  standing  over 
against  the  animal  life,  quick  as  a  flash  his  thought 
should  go  from  the  wrong  to  the  right.  The  quicker 
you  can  go  out  of  a  wrong  course  into  a  right  one,  and 
the  less  of  punitive  experience  you  require  to  lead  you 
to  make  the  change,  the  better.  It  is  all  wrong,  this 
notion  that  a  man  must  wait  a  great  while  for  feeling, 
or  for  more  feeling,  before  he  sets  out  in  the  Christian 
life. 

Say  to  men,  "  Spread  sail ;  and  if  there  is  wind  of 
feeling  enough  to  take  you  out  of  the  channel  into  the 
ocean,  avail  yourself  of  it.  No  matter  how  slight  the 
wind  may  be,  make  sail ;  and  so  long  as  you  have 
enough  to  carry  your  vessel,  you  would  not  be  any 
better  off  if  there  was  a  gale." 


THE  GROWTH  OF  CHRISTIAN  LIFE. 


267 


EVIDENCES  OF  CONVERSION. 

And  now,  as  to  the  evidence  which  men  will  develop, 
and  which  you  are  to  search  for :  In  the  beginning  of 
a  man's  career  in  the  Christian  life,  when  he  first  com- 
mences to  form  purposes  of  reformation,  you  are  to  see 
what  knowledge  he  has  in  that  direction ;  and  it  will 
develop  itself  in  all  sorts  of  ways.  You  must  remem- 
ber the  infirmities  of  men.  For  example,  one  man 
comes  to  me,  and  I  ask  him  what  about  the  Christian 
scheme,  and  about  the  history  of  Christ,  and  find  that 
he  knows  comparatively  little  about  these  things.  I 
find  that  he  is  determined  to  be  a  Christian  and  wants 
to  join  the  church.  I  say  to  him,  Joining  the  church 
is  not  religion."  ''I  know  that,"  he  says;  ''but  I  am 
going  to  join  the  church  and  be  a  better  man."  He 
knows  very  little  about  repentance,  and  faith  in  the 
Lord  Jesus  Christ ;  but  he  has  a  vague  feeling  that  the 
church  represents  the  whole  Christian  life.  He  is  fum- 
bling about  and  feeling  his  way  in  the  dark;  he  is 
blind ;  he  needs  light ;  and  my  business  is  to  look  on 
him,  as  God  does,  with  great  tenderness,  and  lead  him 
along.  He  has  a  purpose,  and  it  only  needs  that  he 
shall  have  intelligence ;  and  my  business  is  to  admin- 
ister it  to  him,  as  he  can  bear  it,  little  by  little.  This 
being  done,  he  will  be  saved. 

It  is  often  asked  of  a  person  that  is  being  examined, 
"  How  long  do  you  think  it  has  been  since  you  became 
a  Christian  ?  "  "  About  two  months."  "  Do  you  recol- 
lect the  particular  time  when  you  became  a  Christian  ? " 
'*  Well,  I  think  it  was  on  such  a  day."  "  Do  you  remem- 
ber the  circumstances  under  which  you  were  converted  ?  " 


268 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


"  I  think  it  was  under  such  and  such  circumstances/* 
Did  you  have  any  very  deep  experiences  ?  "  "I  can- 
not say  that  I  did.  I  felt  that  I  was  a  sinner,  and 
that  I  was  in  need  of  forgiveness ;  and  I  resolved  to 
live  a  Christian  life."  Have  you  had  any  great  joy 
since  ? "  Not  as  much  as  I  wish  I  had."  "  Do  you 
love  to  read  your  Bible  ?  "  "  Sometimes  I  do."  Some- 
times ?  Do  not  you  like  to  read  it  always  ?  "  I  do 
not  know  that  I  do." 

Then  the  examining  committee  set  to  work  to  make 
the  man  insincere.  That  was  a  good  honest  answer.  I 
like  those  persons  who  answer  against  themselves  hon- 
estly. But  the  committee  are  not  satisfied.  They  think 
it  necessary  to  "  search  that  thing  out,"  as  they  say ; 
and  they  put  the  question  again.  Do  not  you  always 
love  to  read  the  word  of  God  ? "  There  is  not  a  man 
who  asks  the  question  that  does.  You  might  as  well 
ask  me,  "  Are  not  you  always  hungry  ?  "  Then  they 
say,  "  Do  you  love  to  pray  ? "  "  Yes,  sir."  "  Do  you 
love  to  be  where  God's  people  are  ? "  That  is  the 
toughest  question  of  all  1 

If  a  poor  ignorant  man  told  me  that  he  was  a  Chris- 
tian, and  wanted  to  go  into  the  church,  I  would  say, 
"  That  is  evidence  to  me."  On  the  other  hand,  if  an 
intelligent  person  said  that  he  liked  to  read  the  Bible, 
that  he  liked  to  pray,  that  he  liked  to  be  in  the  church, 
and  so  on,  I  should  not  consider  that  as  evidence.  I 
should  give  weight  to  the  testimony  of  each  according 
to  the  place  which  he  occupied,  and  the  circumstances 
by  which  he  was  surrounded.  In  order  to  judge  of  a 
man's  piety  and  of  his  fitness  to  go  into  the  church,  I 
want  to  know  his  disposition.  I  want  to  know  whether 


THE  GROWTH  OF  CHRISTIAN  LIFE. 


269 


he  has  reconciled  himself  in  regard  to  that  ten  years' 
quarrel  witli  his  neighbor.  I  want  to  know  if  he  has 
gone  and  confessed  to  that  man  to  whom  he  told  a  lie. 
I  want  to  know  whether  he  has  returned  with  interest 
the  five  thousand  dollars  which  he  embezzled  when  he 
settled  that  estate,  and  whether  he  has  made  confession 
to  the  parties  concerned. 

I  have  had  to  distribute  much  money  which  had 
been  unjustly  obtained  or  withheld.  Persons  on  com- 
ing into  my  church  have  said  that  they  had  defrauded 
men  with  whom  they  had  had  dealings,  and  have  dele- 
gated me  to  carry  the  money  of  which  they  were  un- 
justly possessed  to  the  rightful  owners. 

I  recollect  a  man  who  came  to  me  and  said,  "  I  was 
in  a  certain  firm,  and  we  did  a  commission  business  ;  and 
there  were  three  or  four  occasions  on  which  I  know  we 
received  a  good  deal  of  money  which  belonged-  to  our 
customers.  I  cannot  tell  you  who  my  partners  were,- 
because  it  is  not  for  me  to  inculpate  them ;  but  I  want 
you  to  take  so  much  money  (giving  me  the  amount) 
and  pay  it  out  so  and  so  T  have  made  up  my  mind  to 
be  a  Christian  ;  I  feel  that  a  Christian  must  be  honest ; 
and  I  want  you  to  see  such  and  such  men  and  give  them 
this  money  without  any  name."  It  was  a  very  interest- 
ing interview  that  I  had  with  one  of  the  men,  because 
the  effect  was  to  break  him  down  and  bring  him  under 
conviction.  It  was  a  gospel  to  him.  I  went  into  his 
counting-house,  and  said,  I  have  a  very  pleasant  duty 
to  perform.  There  is  a  man  uniting  with  my  church 
who  thinks  he  is  a  Christian,  who  is  trying  to  live  a 
Christian  life,  and  who  says  he  has  defrauded  you.  This 
is  the  amount  of  the  principal,  and  this  is  the  interest." 


2Y0 


LECTURES  ON  PLEACHING. 


The  man  sat  and  trembled  a  moment,  and  then  he  said, 
"  Who  is  he  ?  For  God's  sake,  tell  me  his  name."  "  No, 
sir,"  I  said,  "  I  cannot  tell  you  his  name."  The  man 
cried  like  a  child.  "  Well,':  said  he,  "  that  means  some- 
thing. -  -  Partner,  come  here."  The  partner  came,  and  he 
had  to  tell  it  all  over  to  him.  This  man  himself  came 
to  my  church  and  began  to  believe  in  religion.  This 
instance  was  so  different  from  anything  that  he  had 
met  with  before,  that  he  thought,  after  all,  there  must 
be  sometliing  in  Christianity,  although  no  such  impres- 
sion had  been  made  npon  him  before  that  time.  For, 
where  men  do  business  and  lind  that  deacons  cheat 
them,  that  leading  men  in  the  church  cheat  them,  and 
that  they  have  to  look  out  as  sharp  for  members  of  the 
church  as  for  anybody  else  (and  a  little  sharper,  because, 
having  everything  settled  up  above,  they  think  they  can 
take  a  little  more  liberty  down  here),  then  it  is  hard  to 
preach  the  gospel  to  them  effectively  ;  but  when  you 
bring  evidence  to  worldly  business  men  that  there  is 
among  Christians  self-denial,  self-sacrifice,  and  humilia- 
tion, not  only  before  God  but  before  men,  it  is  like  a 
gospel  to  them. 

DISPOSITION  THE  CRITERION. 

In  judging  of  a  man's  character  as  a  Christian,  there- 
fore, I  inquire,  first,  "  Is  your  purpose  right  ? "  and  sec- 
ondly, "  Is  your  disposition  conformable  to  that  pur- 
pose ?  "  I  hardly  ever  put  the  same  questions  to  one 
man  that  I  do  to  another. 

Every  man,  therefore,  who  is  typical  of  a  class 
must  be  treated  according  to  his  disposition.  Some 
men  are  cold ;  and  if  they  are  Christ's,  they  will  begin 


THE  gHowth  of  christian  life.  271 


to  thaw  out,  and  be  genial.  Some  men  are  very  selfish, 
proper,  and  exceedingly  excellent ;  and  if  they  really 
become  Christians,  you  will  see  the  steams  and  mists 
rising  which  indicate  the  action  of  April  on  the  frozen 
ground.  There  are  some  men  who  are  proud  and  arro- 
gant ;  and  if  they  have  Christ's  spirit  in  them,  they 
will  begin  to  be  condescending  and  gentle. 

Now,  T  do  not  look  for  the  ground  to  thaw  four  feet 
deep  in  a  second.  If  it  thaws  an  inch  deep  in  a  day, 
I  say,  "Very  well,  let  it  go  on,  and  keep  going  on, 
under  the  warmth  of  the  sun."  And  if  a  man's  purpose 
is  right,  and  he  is,  in  his  daily  life,  fulfilling  that  pur- 
pose, and  finding  out  his  duty  more  and  more,  I  am 
content,  and  I  say  of  him,    He  is  converted." 

So  much  for  Eepentance,  and  so  much  for  the  doc- 
trine of  Conversion. 

AFTER-DEVELOPMENT. 

There  is  one  more  point  that  I  wish  to  propound 
(unless  that  bell  means  that  you  must  go.  You  can 
stay,  can  you  ?  Very  well.  You  will  have  me  here 
only  twice  after  to-day,  and  perhaps  you  can  afford  to 
bear  a  little  more  weariness  in  these  last  lectures).  I 
want  to  say,  in  regard  to  the  after-development  of 
Christian  life,  that  we  are  too  apt,  as  soon  as  men  are 
converted,  and  brought  into  the  fold,  to  feel,  "  Now  they 
are  all  safe,  and  we  will  look  out  for  others."  We  are 
forever  dragging  the  net,  and  never  scaling  and  packing 
down  our  fish.  We  are  working  to  save  men's  souls,  on 
the  theory  that  when  a  man  has  a  very  slight  moral 
impression  made  on  him,  and  he  swells  the  number  of 
our  church,  we  are  to  take  it  for  granted  that  his  soul 


272 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


is  saved.  I  do  not  feel  so  at  all.  I  feel  that  we  are 
more  responsible  for  a  person,  when  once  we  have  him 
in  the  church  than  we  were  before.  And  frequently  he 
is  in  more  danger ;  because  if  he  is  wrong,  and  he  thinks 
he  is  right,  all  those  influences  which  otherwise  would 
naturally  tend  to  condemn  him  cease  to  operate  on 
him.  Such  a  man  is  in  great  danger  in  the  church  ;  and 
your  work  must  especially  continue  with  him. 

And  in  regard  to  the  higher  life  in  a  church,  let  me 
say,  that  by  maintaining  the  whole  membership  active, 
and  keeping  fresh  before  their  minds  that  they  are  fol- 
lowing Christ,  not  in  their  corporate  church  capacity, 
but  each  one  in  the  field  where  Christ  put  him,  their 
development  in  that  higher  life  will  be  promoted.  A 
boy  is  following  Christ  as  a  boy,  at  home,  at  school, 
wherever  he  is,  and  therefore  his  experiences  and  de- 
velopments must  be  there,  and  not  somewhere  else. 
A  mother  who  cannot  go  to  meeting,  but  is  at  home 
bearing  and  nursing  children,  has  her  church  in  that 
particular  workshop.  In  those  special  ways  in  which 
her  duties  are  to  be  performed,  she  is  to  develop  this 
higher  life  of  consecration  to  God,  through  benevolence, 
and  faith,  and  love,  and  hope.  A  mechanic  or  day- 
laborer  finds  his  altar  in  precisely  those  relations  in 
which,  in  the  providence  of  God,  he  is  placed.  The 
business  man  has  his  temptations  and  victories,  and  in 
those  temptations  and  victories,  for  the  most  part,  his 
higher  disposition  is  to  be  unfolded.  We  are  to  make 
men  feel  that  while  the  church  is  the  great  feeding- 
ground  of  the  world,  the  world  of  business  is  the  drill- 
ing-ground where  the  strength  of  those  who  are  in  the 
church  is  to  be  used.    We  are  to  make  them  feel  that 


THE  GROWTH  OF  CHEISTIAN  LIFE. 


273 


that  love  is  poor  and  superficial  which  does  not  actuate 
their  every-day  life ;  that  being  a  Christian  is  carrying 
one's  self  lovingly  in  the  place  where  God  put  his  or- 
dinary life,  and  performing  the  duties  of  the  higher  life 
with  a  full  beneficence  and  consecration ;  that,  to  be  a 
true  worshiper  of  God,  one  must  carry  the  spirit  of  the 
Sabbath  into  all  the  week,  and  not  act  as  if  Sunday 
were  the  sacred  day,  and  all  the  rest  of  the  days  un- 
sacred.  We  are  to  make  them  feel  that  they  are  to  take 
their  religion  to  their  business,  and  that  the  sphere  of 
their  business  is  the  place  where  their  religion  should 
develop  itself 

THE  HIGHER  LIFE. 

Then  comes  the  transcendent  experience  of  Chris- 
tians. I  have  spoken  somewhat  slightingly  in  your 
presence,  I  am  afraid,  of  perfectionism.  I  have  known 
instances  in  which  I  did  not  sufficiently  measure  my 
words ;  and  it  may  be  that  I  have  used  language  which 
might  be  construed  as  throwing  contempt  upon  perfec- 
tionists. But  far  be  it  from  me  to  speak  with  con- 
tempt, I  would  rather  speak  with  admiration,  of  what 
may  more  fitly  be  called  the  higher  forms  of  the  de- 
velopment of  Christian  experience.  There  is,  I  be- 
lieve, as  much  a  genius  for  the  higher  developments 
of  Christianity  —  that  is,  for  the  higher  natural  devel- 
opments of  the  human  mind  —  as  there  is  for  develop- 
ments of  any  other  kind.  Some  of  the  higher  Chris- 
tian developments  in  men  are  of  transcendent  beauty, 
and  are  not  to  be  cried  down,  unless  those  who  pos- 
sess them  make  them  cruel  and  despotic ;  but  they  are 
not  possible  to  all. 

12*  R 


274 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


For  example,  no  man  who  is  misadjusted  in  his  origi- 
nal structure,  no  man  the  problem  of  whose  life  con- 
sists in  harmonizing  his  own  antagonistic  faculties,  will 
be  able  to  develop  the  quality  of  serenity  in  life  except 
to  a  limited  degree ;  while  on  the  other  hand  a  man 
whose  original  structure  is  well  adjusted,  and  whose 
faculties  are  naturally  harmonious,  will  be  able  to  de- 
velop that  quality  to  a  high  degree  of  perfection. 

I  once  had  come  to  my  lecture-room  a  lady  whose 
business  was  to  preach  the  higher  life ;  and  I  think  I 
never  saw  so  sweet  and  seraphic  a  face  as  that  of  this 
woman.  She  stood  in  the  presence  of  my  congregation 
and  talked ;  and  it  was  like  a  vision  of  angels  to  hear 
her  voice.  It  did  me  good  all  through  to  witness  her 
serene,  simple  rejoicing  in  Jesus  Christ,  and  to  observe 
the  intense  conviction  whicli  she  had,  that  as  she  was, 
so  everybody  could  be.  She  was  mistaken  in  this ; 
but  it  was  a  mistake  which  came  from  the  simplicity 
and  generosity  of  her  heart;  and  she,  under  the  full 
power  of  faith  and  love  in  Jesus  Christ,  rose  to  an 
experience  as  unique  as  Mozart's  musical  talent,  that 
was  real,  but  not  universal.  It  was  special  to  her  by 
reason  of  a  foregoing  preparation  for  it  in  her  nature, 
organization,  endowment,  and  communion  with  Qod. 

I  should  rejoice  to  see  a  church  made  up  of  such 
persons  ;  but  am  I  to  say  to  my  beloved  people,  "  Here 
is  what  you  must  all  come  to.  You  can  every  one  of 
you  come  to  this,  and  it  is  your  fault  and  sin  if  you  do 
not  come  to  it "  ?  I  might  as  well  read  one  of  Shake- 
speare's dramas  in  a  village  school,  and  say  to  the  boys, 
Not  one  of  you  may  think  that  he  is  educated  until 
he  can  write  such  a  drama  as  that,"    But  how  many 


THE  GROWTH  OF  CHKISTIAN  LIFE. 


275 


men  in  the  history  of  the  world  could  do  that  ?  I 
might  as  well  examine  a  boy  in  Newton's  Princijpiay 
and  say,  There  is  what  you  are  to  come  to,  and  you 
will  be  sinful  if  you  do  not  come  to  it." 

These  things  are  not  general,  but  special.  Yet  it  is 
a  great  comfort  to  me,  in  my  struggles  with  myself,  in 
my  attempt  to  chord  my  own  varying  powers,  to  know 
that  such  struggles  have  resulted  in  harmony  in  others. 
I  know  that  it  is  real,  and  I  have  hope.  There  was 
never  anything  that  so  nearly  killed  me  as  trying  to  be 
Jonathan  Edwards.  I  did  try  hard.  Then  I  tried  to 
be  Brainard ;  then  I  tried  to  be  James  Brainard  Tay- 
lor; then  I  tried  to  be  Payson;  then  I  tried  to  be 
Henry  Martyn  ;  and  then  I  gave  up,  and  succeeded  in 
being  nothing  but  just  myself. 

Yet  every  man  must  feel  that  he  can  raise  himself 
higher  and  higher.  Do  not  allow  people  to  feel  that 
there  are  no  higher  attainments  than  they  have  reached. 
Do  not  allow  them  to  feel  that  there  is  no  higher  rest 
of  soul  into  which  they  can  ascend. 

If  any  rise  to  a  high  degree  of  perfection,  let  it  be 
maintained,  and  maintained,  too,  with  humility,  for  I 
have  seen  persons  that  claimed  to  have  perfection  who 
were  puffed  up,  and  about  whom,  in  their  social  ways, 
there  was  an  ineffable  odor  of,  "  Don't  you  wish  you 
were  as  good  as  I  am  ?  "  See  that  the  higher  life  does 
not  degenerate  into  anything  unworthy ;  and  see,  also, 
that  it  does  not  discourage  anybody ;  and  that  you 
do  not  teach  your  people  that  their  feeling  must  be 
just  so  or  it  is  good  for  nothing. 

All  feelings  that  aim  in  the  right  direction  are  rec- 
ognized and  blessed  of  God,  from  the  lowest  to  the 


276 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


highest.  The  same  sun  that  moves  round  and  round 
the  world,  and  shines  on  the  cedars  of  Lebanon,  on  the 
mighty  live-oaks  of  Florida,  and  on  the  immense  se- 
quoias of  California,  also  shines  on  the  moss  and  the 
lichen ;  and  the  love  of  God  broods  over  all  men,  from 
the  lowest  to  the  highest. 


XL 


CHEISTIAN  MANHOOD. 

March  18,  1874. 
THE  AIM  OF  PAUL'S  MINISTRY. 

CANNOT  trace  in  the  Apostle  Paul's  writ- 
ings the  slightest  effect  of  his  visit  among 
the  Greeks.  He  does  not  seem  to  have 
seen,  or  if  he  saw  he  does  not  seem  to  have 
felt,  or  if  he  felt  he  felt  only  glancingiy  and  super- 
ficially, the  physical  and  visible  beauty  which  was 
developed  among  the  Greek  people.  Whether  it  was 
because  the  stock  to  which  he  belonged  had  no  educa- 
tion in  the  science  of  beauty  (the  Jews  were  not  a 
building  people,  nor  a  painting  people,  nor,  in  general, 
a  structural  people),  or  whether  it  was  because  all  their 
sense  of  beauty  was  drawn  up  into  their  moral  nature, 
so  that  what  was  beauty  to  them  was  beauty  of  char- 
acter, as  it  is  called,  or  beauty  of  holiness,  as  it  is 
expressed  in  the  Scriptures,  cannot  be  precisely  said, 
although  the  latter  is  the  view  I  rather  incline  to ;  but, 
with  the  exception  of  some  general  allusions,  there  is 
very  little  evidence  that  the  Apostle  took  much  from 
the  Greeks.  He  spoke  of  their  games,  of  their  races, 
of  their  strifes,  and  so  on ;  but  there  is  one  figure  that 


278 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


he  employs  which  I  shall  use  by  way  of  introducing 
this  lecture,  and  which  is  found  in  the  third  chapter 
of  his  first  letter  to  the  Corinthian  church.  He  speaks 
of  the  disciples  as  being  God's  building ;  and  he  speaks 
of  himself  as  being  the  architect  who  had  helped  build 
it,  —  as  the  master-builder;  he  declares  that  he  had 
sketched  out  the  foundation-plan,  and  that  whoever 
came  after  him  must  build  according  to  that  plan, 
which  consisted  in  delineating  the  qualities  of  the 
Lord  Jesus  Christ.  He  was  that  foundation-plan  or 
ground-sketch  on  which  men  were  to  build.  And  what 
were  they  to  build  ?  A  church  ?  No,  each  individual 
man  was  to  build  a  character. 

Paul,  then,  had  a  definite  conception,  himself,  of 
what  he  was  about;  and  he  left  also  to  those  who 
should  come  after  him,  under  his  influence,  this  sug- 
gestion :  that  they  were  not  to  work  at  haphazard. 
Their  business  was  to  create  new  men  on  this  founda- 
tion or  ground-plan  of  Jesus  Christ,  which  he  had 
sketched  out.    He  had  an  aim. 

Every  man  that  goes  into  the  ministry  should  have 
an  aim,  understanding  with  himself  definitely  and  ac- 
curately, as  far  as  may  be,  what  he  shall  drive  at.  It 
is  not  simply  that  you  shall  perform  your  routine 
duties  abstractly  or  ecclesiastically :  you  will  do  that 
of  course,  but  it  is  only  a  means  to  an  end ;  or,  if  it  be 
not,  it  is  machinery,  and  unworthy  of  your  manhood. 
It  is  not  enough  that  you  should  get  together  large  con- 
gregations in  destitute  places,  or  that  in  places  where 
congregations  are  organized  you  should  perform  the 
regular  parochial  duties ;  for  these  things,  too,  are 
ftierely   instrunaental,     They  are   measures  adopted 


CHRISTIAN  MANHOOD. 


279 


with  reference  to  results.  There  must  be  something 
a  great  deal  deeper. 

THE  PERFECTION  OF  HUMAN  CHARACTER. 

On  what  plan,  then,  must  a  man  proceed  in  his 
ministry  ? 

This  brings  me  back  to  the  last  topic  which  we  had 
under  consideration,  and  which  I  had  not  time  to  dis- 
cuss except  in  a  very  brief  and  superficial  manner.  In 
my  last  talk  with  you,  I  was  on  the  question  of  Sanc- 
tification,  or  the  final  form  of  the  Christian  character 
which  it  is  your  object  to  produce,  and  toward  which 
all  your  ministry  must  lead  up.  Let  me  say  that  I 
look  upon  this  subject  as  transcending  in  importance 
any  other  which  I  have  brought  before  you.  It  is 
that  which  God  meant  when  he  revealed  himself  in 
Christ  Jesus.  It  is  that  which  he  has  meant  in  the 
long  course  of  that  providence  by  which  he  has  sought 
to  shape  this  inchoate  race  into  symmetry  and  beauty 
and  divinity.  It  is,  therefore,  the  object  of  the  Divine 
scheme ;  and  you,  as  workers  together  with  God,  will 
find  the  supreme  end  of  your  ministry  in  this :  the 
perfection  of  human  character  according  to  the  design 
of  God,  and  according  to  the  pattern  of  that  design 
which  is  manifested  to  us  in  the  life  and  character  of 
the  Lord  Jesus  Christ.  I  regard  this  subject  as  all- 
important,  not  simply  on  account  of  the  life  of  the  in- 
dividual who  is  concerned  in  it,  —  though  that  is  im- 
measurably important,  —  but  because  I  feel  that  religion 
in  our  age  is  in  danger,  on  the  one  hand,  of  becoming 
a  mere  enthusiasm,  —  haply  a  superstition ;  and,  on 
the  other  hand,  of  becoming  a  cold  and  polite  natural- 


280 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


ism ;  and  because,  escaping  either  of  these,  it  threatens 
to  be  theoretic,  technic,  ecclesiastic,  pedantic,  —  in 
short,  Pharisaic. 

So,  then,  there  is,  and  there  must  be,  a  conception  of 
Christian  character  which  shall  go  deeper ;  and  with 
that  Christian  character  before  us,  it  seems  to  me  we 
shall  not  only  renew  the  power  of  the  ministry,  but 
meet  all  those  tendencies  which  exist  and  are  gath- 
ering their  forces  to  produce  '^^9^religion,  if  not  irre- 
ligion. 

You  must  needs  make  the  Christian  man  something 
more  real  and  noble  than  the  outside  world  have  been 
accustomed  to  regard  him,  and  with  the  power  of  love, 
with  the  force  that  lies  in  being,  with  the  irresistible- 
ness  that  exists  in  moral  qualities,  I  would  gain  victo- 
ries, and  reassert  the  place  of  the  church  and  foremost 
the  office  of  the  Christian  ministry. 

THE  TRUE  NATURE  OF  MAN. 

For  just  now  we  are  shaking  in  the  wind  ;  and  the 
official  Archbishop  of  Canterbury  is  not,  on  the  whole, 
to-day  regarded  by  thinking  men  in  England  as  so  noble 
a  type  of  manhood  as  Mr.  Tyndall  or  Herbert  Spencer. 
There  is  a  popular  feeling  setting  in,  more  and  more, 
that  we  are  to  look  for  our  best  types  of  character,  not 
in  the  church  and  her  offices,  but  in  the  schools  of 
science  and  of  philosophy  ;  and  though  this  may  not  be 
a  new  thing,  it  is  a  thing  whose  force  is  more  visible 
to-day,  and  whose  influence  shadows  us  more,  than  at 
any  other  period  of  our  lives.  Men  are  going  back 
from  religion,  as  something  artificial,  to  nature,  as  a 
truer  and  a  safer  ground. 


CHRISTIAN  MANHOOD. 


281 


Now,  what  is  Nature  ?  We  use  this  word  carelessly, 
as  signifying  the  great  material  world  outside ,  of  our- 
selves. When  it  is  applied  to  man  we  often  signify  by 
it  simply  his  primitive  condition.  When  used  in  re- 
gard to  the  individual,  it  simifies  that  which  he  is 
at  his  hirth,  —  his  untaught,  untrained  self,  —  his  pri- 
mary status  in  this  world  before  he  has  developed 
anything. 

Now,  I  protest  against  this  use  of  the  word  nature. 
Man  is  not  by  nature  what  he  is  when  he  begins.  In 
the  whole  realm  of  the  world  outside,  that  lives  in  the 
vegetable  kingdom  and  in  the  animal  kingdom,  we  do 
not  reason  so.  We  do  not  consider  that  to  be  the  na- 
ture of  a  plant  which  you  find  when  it  .sprouts.  We 
wait  until  every  seed  has  brought  forth  the  fullness  of 
what  is  in  it,  and  that  we  call  its  "  nature."  We  look 
not  in  the  acorn  to  know  the  nature  of  the  oak,  but  in 
the  tree  a  hundred  years  grown.  We  look  not  in  the 
wild  rice  of  the  wilderness  to  see  what  the  nature  of 
the  grain  is,  but  in  rice  that  has  been  cultivated  and 
perfected.  For  the  nature  of  cereals  we  look  not  at 
them,  small  and  shriveled  where  no  hand  hath  reared 
them ;  but  we  look  at  them  where  by  the  skill  of  man 
they  have  been  enabled  to  develop  themselves  to  the 
uttermost  bounds  and  limits.  We  do  not  look  at  the 
lion's  whelp,  blind  and  sucking  its  dam,  and  call  that 
a  lion.  We  wait  until  it  is  clothed  with  power,  —  then 
we  see  the  lion  and  the  lion's  nature.  We  do  not  look 
at  the  poor  unfledged  and  callow  eaglet,  opening  its 
mouth  and  receiving  food  from  the  parent  bird,  and 
call  that  an  eagle.  It  is  only  when  he  lifts  himself  up 
with  power  of  wing  and  reach  of  vision  that  we  call 


282 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


him  the  king  of  birds.  His  nature  is  not  at  its  puling 
beginnings,  but  the  other  end. 

And  why  should  we  take  the  human  race  at  their 
seed-end,  and  call  that  a  man's  nature  which  he  is  at 
the  outset,  when  he  is  raw  and  undeveloped,  instead  of 
calhng  that  his  nature  which  he  is  when  he  is  ripened 
and  unfolded,  and  which  the  mind  of  God  had  in  view 
when  he  created  him  ? 

So,  then,  man's  nature  does  not  lie  where  he  be^an, 
but  the  other  way.  It  is  that  which  he  may  become. 
Man's  true  nature  is  that  which  he  is  when,  under  right 
conditions,  under  proper  culture,  and  under  the  stimu- 
lating influence  of  the  Divine  Soul,  he  has  been  carried 
on  in  development,  in  harmonization,  to  perfectness. 
What  a  man  reaches  when  he  is  harmonized  with  him- 
self and  with  God,  —  that  is  his  nature. 

OBJECT  OF  THE  CHRISTIAN  MINISTRY. 

I  have  made  these  remarks  in  order  to  say  that  re- 
ligion is  natural  to  man,  not  artificial;  and  that  our 
business  is  to  bring  men  up  to  their  nature.  To  every 
scientist,  to  every  philosopher,  to  every  cold,  reasoning 
man  who  looks  at  the  instruments  of  the  church,  at  its 
economy,  at  its  external  clothing,  as  it  were,  and  calls 
these  religion,  I  say  that  what  /  mean  by  religion  is 
that  which  a  man  is  brought  to  by  Divine  guidance,  when 
everything  in  him  is  in  its  normal  condition  and  ulti- 
mate strength.  And  it  is  to  this  that  you  are  to  bring 
men.  Bringing  them  to  this  is  the  real  object  of  our 
ministry.  We  are  not  to  start  them,  to  disquiet  them, 
to  get  them  into  the  church,  and  then  to  neglect  them. 
We  are  not  simply  to  make  them  happy,  or  to  make 


CHRISTIAN  MANHOOD. 


283 


them  do  some  good  :  we  are  to  labor  to  bring  them 
to  the  stature  of  the  fullness  of  manhood  in  Christ 
Jesus.  That  is  the  supreme  end  of  the  Christian  min- 
istry. 

HUMAN  NEED  OF  EDUCATION. 

When  animals  are  born,  there  are  but  three  letters 
to  the  alphabet  of  their  faculties,  as  it  were,  —  A,  B,  C; 
but  when  men  are  born  there  are  twenty -six  or  more 
letters  to  the  alphabet  of  their  faculties.  Take  a  lion, 
for  instance.  There  can  be  only  six  permutations  of 
his  three  letters ;  and  the  lion  soon  goes  through  them 
all,  and  grows  up  to  his  full  self,  —  and  he  does  it  with- 
out a  schoolmaster.  But  no  man  grows  up  to  his  full 
self  without  a  schoolmaster.  The  ages  have  to  wait  for 
men.  The  beginnings  of  the  human  race  are  unsuscep- 
tible to  the  full  development  of  human  character. 
That  is  a  thing  so  large  and  so  glorious  that  it  takes 
not  simply  the  limit  of  one  man's  life,  but  ages  of  na- 
tions to  develop  it ;  and  it  goes  on  becoming  larger  and 
larger  in  every  generation.  The  world  will  come  to  its 
full  power  and  supreme  glory  only  when  the  ultimate 
conditions  of  human  character  are  reached,  which  are  so 
complex  because  man  is  so  rich  in  his  endowments  ; 
because  there  are  so  many  organ-stops  in  him  ;  because 
there  are  so  many  alphabetic  initials,  making  as  many 
variations  in  his  experience  as  the  letters  of  our  lan- 
guage make  words  in  literature.  It  is  a  large  and  a 
long  work,  to  bring  to  perfection  that  which  God  meant 
in  man,  and  which  ought  to  be  expressed  by  the  word 
7iature.  When  a  man  is  developed  up  to  his  true  na- 
ture, the  reason,  every  part  of  it,  must  be  brought  to 


284 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


its  full ;  the  moral  sentiments,  each  one  of  them,  must 
be  brought  to  their  full ;  the  social  faculties  must  be 
brought  to  their  full ;  every  part  of  the  mind  must  be 
brought  to  its  full :  and  each  must  learn  its  role.  Con- 
sider how  many  faculties  there  are  which  go  to  con- 
stitute the  reason;  and  consider  that  each  one  not 
only  has  to  learn  its  own  trade,  but  has  to  keep  good 
neighborhood  with  corresponding  faculties.  Consider 
how  many  sentiments  there  are  in  a  man's  moral  na- 
ture ;  and  consider  that  each  one  of  these  not  only  has 
to  learn  to  perform  the  functions  of  its  own  sphere 
with  full  power,  but  that  it  also  has  to  co-operate  with 
the  others.  Consider  that  every  part  is  to  grow  strong, 
and  is  also  to  grow  concordantly  with  the  rest. 

There  is  this  necessity  of  education,  or  development 
by  training,  in  each  man's  natural  state,  —  not  the  state 
in  which  he  is  born,  but  that  state  for  which  he  was 
born,  and  towards  which  he  is  to  come  by  the  gradual 
birth  of  fourscore  years  or  more  ;  and  your  business,  as 
an  educator,  is  to  bring  him  to  that. 

LOVE,  THE  ONLY  PRACTICAL  SOUL-CENTER. 

This  view  gives  an  immense  leverage.  I  speak  not 
altogether  without  experience.  I  have  a  congregation 
which  is  filled  with  young  scientists.  I  know  their 
doubts.  I  am  acquainted  with  their  difficulties.  I 
have  for  years  been  seeking  to  find  out  the  way  of  pre- 
senting to  them  the  truth  as  it  is  in  Christ.  I  have 
been  endeavoring  to  preach  the  gospel  to  men  who 
have  been  imbued  with  the  spirit  of  the  modern  schools, 
in  such  a  way  that  it  should  meet  their  moral  convic- 
tions,   I  have  studied  to  impress  men  with  the  feeling 


CHRISTIAN  MANHOOD. 


285 


that  religion  means  that  final  form  of  development 
which  consists  in  the  perfect  harmonization  and 
strengthening  of  their  powers  around  about  a  common 
center  of  the  soul,  under  the  Divine  inspiration.  I 
have  sought  to  lead  them  to  recognize  that  religion 
presents  a  philosophical  conception  which  is  not  in  dis- 
agreement with  the  tendencies  of  the  present  day,  — 
which  harmonizes  with  them.  It  has  been  my  endeav- 
or thus  to  gain  the  ear  of  men  who  were  likely  to  be 
alienated  from  mere  sectarian  views  which  embrace 
philosophical  formulas  that  are  antiquated  or  run 
out. 

This  harmonization  of  all  the  faculties  of  the  soul 
can  only  take  place  around  the  true  center.  There  is 
but  one  center  about  which  you  can  harmonize  a 
man's  faculties  so  that  the  reason  will  submit  to  its 
mastership ;  so  that  the  moral  sentiments  will  do 
obeisance  to  it ;  so  that  the  social  elements  will  admit 
that  it  is  sovereign  ;  so  that  all  the  appetites  and  pas- 
sions will  yield  allegiance  to  it ;  so  that  every  bodily 
force  will  willingly  submit  to  its  control :  and  that  cen- 
ter is  Love. 

OTHER  FACULTIES  TESTED. 

For  instance,  take  Eeason  as  a  center  and  attempt  to 
harmonize  the  whole  character  about  that.  In  the  first 
place,  the  reason  of  man  is  but,  comparatively  speaking, 
a  guide.  Make  it  free  as  you  please,  and  let  it  be 
fruitful  as  may  be,  searching  every  whither ;  but  alone 
it  can  never  become  a  center  around  which  the  powers 
of  a  man  will  all  move  obediently  and  harmoniously. 
And  that  experience  has  shown,  thousands  and  tens  of 


286  LECTURES  ON  PREACHINa. 


thousands  of  times.  More  than  that,  reason  can  never 
interpret  to  a  man  that  which  is  his  truest  manhood. 
Eeason  is  itself  the  instrument  of  all  the  rest  of  the 
mind  ;  and  the  man  lies  under  it,  behind  it,  and  around 
it.  Just  as  the  ocean  lies  underneath  the  ship,  so  the 
great  motive-power  of  man,  his  heart  and  soul,  lies  un- 
derneath the  reason.  Eeason  never  can  express  a  feel- 
ing. It  expresses  ideas  and  their  relationships  ;  but 
the  interpretation  of  emotion  by  ideas,  the  intellectual 
conception  of  a  feeling,  is  simply  impossible.  Still  less 
can  the  force  of  feeling  be  controlled  by  ideas.  If  a 
man  undertakes  to  make  himself  a  Christian  by  stand- 
ing on  a  center  of  reasonableness,  and  doing  whatever 
he  sees  to  be  riglit,  he  must  ask  leave  of  his  temper. 
There  are  thousands  of  men  who  know  that  it  is  rea- 
sonable not  to  be  excited  ;  but  if,  as  they  step  out  of 
doors,  they  meet  a  man  who  owes  them  money,  and  who 
says  to  them,  "  Get  it  if  you  can ;  you  can't  collect  a 
cent,"  how  they  fly  off  from  the  beautiful  center  of 
reason  ! 

It  has  no  control  over  passion  and  appetite.  You 
may  throw  as  many  icicles  into  the  fire  as  you  please, 
but  icicles  won't  put  out  fire.  Ice  must  be  liquefied 
before  it  can  be  of  any  use  for  such  a  purpose.  And 
so  reason  is  incapable  of  extinguishing  the  elements 
of  evil  which  exist  in  men.  It  may  set  about  con- 
trolling the  other  faculties  of  the  mind ;  but  the  mo- 
ment its  attention  is  withdrawn  from  them  they  are 
like  school-boys  that  laugh  and  play  when  the  master 
is  out ;  and  when  it  comes  back  it  is  quite  surprised  at 
the  disorder  which  prevails  in  the  school  of  the  soul. 
They  won't  mind  it. 


CHRISTIAN  MANHOOD. 


287 


A  man  loves  money  better  than  anything  else  in  the 
world  ;  he  sees  how  his  life  is  deranged  by  his  avarice, 
and  he  tries  to  persuade  himself  that  it  is  right  to  de- 
vote himself  to  its  accumulation.  He  says,  "  I  take  a 
great  deal  of  enjoyment  in  collecting  my  rents,  and, 
right  or  wrong,  I  am  going  to  have  money."  The  rea- 
son protests  against  this ;  but  avarice  laughs  and  has 
its  own  way,  in  spite  of  reason. 

A  man  is  told  how  foolish  pride  is  ;  how  much 'mis- 
ery it  brings  him ;  how  much  unhappiness  it  causes 
other  men;  what  a  stirrer  up  of  trouble,  and  what  a 
producer  of  pain,  it  is.  The  reason  is  convinced,  and 
says  to  pride,  "  You  must  humble  yourself.  Mischief- 
maker  Pride  "  ;  but  a  sparrow  might  as  well  say  to 
Mont  Blanc,  "  Come  down  and  play  with  me  in  the 
valley."  It  will  not  come  down  ;  and  no  more  will 
pride  humble  itself  in  obedience  to  the  command  of 
reason. 

Take  another  element  around  about  which  character 
is  formed  as  a  controlling  power.  Next  to  reason,  men 
center  their  life  on  the  Will.  Gentlemen,  do  you  know 
what  the  will  is  ?  I  know  what  it  is  in  its  concrete 
form  ;  but  in  its  philosophy,  in  its  faculty,  what  is  it  ? 
You  cannot  give  a  definition  of  it.  We  all  think  that 
it  is  a  directive  force,  and  that  is  all.  It  does  not  gen- 
erate feeling  nor  thought,  it  simply  gives  direction  to 
something  which  existed  beforehand.  It  cannot,  there- 
fore, be  a  center.  It  controls  ;  but  it  only  controls  ele- 
ments which  have  been  developed  for  it  to  control. 
Any  amount  of  effort  has  been  put  forth  to  make  it  a 
center ;  but  see  with  what  result.  For  instance.  Pro- 
fessor Finney  has  made  the  will  the  grand  center-point 


288 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


of  departure  from  selfish  life  to  holy  life.  A  man  re- 
solves, "  By  the  grace  of  God,  from  this  hour  I  will  at- 
tempt to  live  as  a  Christian,  and  all  my  life  shall  flow 
in  that  direction."  That  is  right,  instrumentally ;  but 
Inen  of  strong  understanding  go  on  all  their  life  long 
vainly  attempting  to  build  up  Christian  character  on 
that  doctrine.  There  is  a  latent  doctrine,  or  an  overt 
one,  more  or  less  concerned  in  it ;  but  their  character 
is  formed  on  the  will-power,  as  it  is  called ;  or  it  is  the 
result  of  a  series  of  determinations.  And  what  do  you 
make  of  them  ?  Keen,  active,  executive,  external  men ; 
but  seldom  men  sweet,  kindly,  or  fuU-souled.  The 
crystallizing  force  is  in  the  wrong  place  in  such  na- 
tures. 

Another  class  of  men  attempt  to  subdue  the  whole 
nature  around  about  Veneration  as  a  central  point ;  the 
sense  of  the  magnitude,  of  the  sublimity,  of  the  author- 
ity, and  of  the  grandeur  of  God.  To  veneration  men 
are  taught  to  attempt  to  submit  everything  which  they 
have  in  them.  You  cannot  make  a  rich  nature  in  that 
way.  It  is  not  simply  having  a  sense  of  nobility,  and 
certainly  it  is  not  having  an  awful  fear  of  what  is  no- 
ble, that  is  going  to  make  one's  nature  rich. 

There  are  two  elements  in  religion.  One  is  the  re- 
strictive element ;  and  that  is  to  be  strong  in  propor- 
tion as  men  are  nearly  allied  to  their  animal  conditions. 
Not  to  do  wrong  is  the  lowest  element  of  piety ;  but 
thousands  of  persons  never  reach  any  higher  than  that. 
Not  to  do  wrong  is  their  charter ;  and  veneration, 
though  it  adds  color  to  a  character  under  certain  cir- 
cumstances, is,  as  a  controlling  center,  substantially 
negative.    It  holds  men  back,  restrains  them,  outwardly, 


CHRISTIAN  MANHOOD. 


289 


from  disobedience  or  neglect ;  but  restraining  evil  is 
the  lowest  form  and  type  of  influence.  It  is  essen- 
tially allied  to  the  animal  condition. 

The  fruit  of  the  Spirit  is  not  negative,  but  positive. 
It  is  zeal  in  love ;  it  is  humility  ;  it  is  mind-influence ; 
it  is  disinterestedness  ;  it  is  activity  in  doing  good.  As 
you  rise  from  the  animal  toward  the  higher  forms  of 
men,  the  natures  that  are  developed  must  be  positive, 
and  not  negative.  A  man  may  have  a  garden  with  not 
a  single  bit  of  purslane  in  it  from  one  end  to  the  other, 
with  not  a  single  Canada  thistle  in  it,  with  not  a  pig- 
weed in  it,  with  not  a  particle  of  dock  in  it,  with  not 
one  single  weed  in  it ;  a  man  may  have  a  garden  with- 
out one  bad  thing  in  it,  —  and  without  a  'good  thing  in 
it  either,  not  a  flower  nor  a  fruit. 

Now,  to  get  your  weeds  out  of  the  way  is  all  right ; 
but  the  weeds  are  to  be  got  out  in  order  that  the 
ground  may  be  occupied  by  positive  blossoms  and  fruit. 
Not  doing  wrong  is  right ;  but  it  is  a  lower  right.  It 
is  simply  keeping  under  the  weeds,  as  it  were,  of  the 
disposition,  w^hile  the  real  thing  which  a  man  should 
seek  to  do  should  be  to  produce  positive  virtues. 
But  veneration  does  not  produce  these  ;  and  therefore 
it  is  not,  when  the  soul  moves  in  complex  ways,  fitted 
to  be  the  master.  It  cannot  drive  the  soul  when  its 
different  faculties  are  all  abroad,  and  are  variously  en- 
gaged.   It  takes  another  charioteer. 

So  neither  can  you  center  the  character  around  about 
Ideality,  —  the  artist  feeling,  —  the  taste  feeling,  —  the 
sense  of  beauty  and  propriety.  At  certain  stages  of 
civilization  men  naturally  make  that  pre-eminent ;  and, 
as  I  have  said,  it  may  become  a  powerful  auxiliary  to 

VOL.  III.  13  S 


290 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


the  spiritual  emotions,  to  a  much  larger  extent  than  it 
is  ;  but  as  a  master-center,  as  a  sovereign  in  the  soul,  it 
is  feeble.  As  a  restrainer,  as  a  harmonizer,  as  a  guide 
and  governor,  it  is  power  indeed. 

And  that  which  is  true  of  beauty  is  just  as  true 
of  Conscience.  We  hear  a  great  deal  said  about  con-, 
science ;  we  hear  a  great  deal  said  about  the  lack  of 
conscience ;  and  I  believe  that  the  foundations  of  char- 
acter ought  to  be  laid  on  conscience,  just  as  the  parlor 
and  the  nursery  ought  to  be  laid  on  oak  sills ;  but  I 
should  as  soon  think  of  bringing  up  my  children  on 
planks  and  timbers  in  the  parlor  and  nursery,  laying 
their  bare  limbs  down  on  these  hard  timbers  and 
planks,  as  to  attempt  to  make  a  rich,  sweet,  lovely,  and 
lustrous  character  simply  on  conscience,  which  is,  in 
its  essential  nature,  cold,  hard,  condemnatory,  and 
which  comes  into  alliance  with  the  malign  passions 
much  more  naturally  than  with  the  benign  elements. 
Its  true  chemical  affinities  are  with  the  bottom,  and 
not  often  with  the  top.  At  any  rate,  they  have,  by 
practice  and  habit,  been  made  to  ally  themselves  very 
much  wdth  the  lower  qualities  of  the  mind.  The  soul 
will  not  own  conscience  as  its  master. 

Neither  will  Fear  nor  Superstition  do  to  be  made  the 
center  about  which  to  harmonize  all  the  faculties  of  a 
man's  soul.    There  is  but  one  real  center. 

THE  PAULINE  CONCEPTION. 

"Though  I  speak  with  the  tongues  of  men  and  of  angels 
[though  I  speak  Syriac,  and  Hebrew,  and  Greek,  and  Latin, 
yes,  and  the  language  of  angels,  —  I  think  I  see  that  in  the 
text],  and  have  not  love,  I  am  as  sounding  brass,  or  a  tink- 
ling cymbal." 


CHRISTIAN  MANHOOD. 


291 


If  he  had  lived  in  our  day,  he  would  have  said  a 
bass-drum,  which  is  very  empty  and  very  noisy. 

"  And  though  I  have  the  gift  of  prophecy  [aptitude  of 
speech  as  well  as  foresight  and  disclosure],  and  understand 
all  mysteries,  and  all  knowledge,  and  though  I  have  all  faith 
so  that  I  could  remove  mountains,  and  have  not  love,  I  am 
nothing ;  and  though  I  bestow  all  my  goods  to  feed  the  poor 
[though  I  am  imboundedly  generous,  —  generosity  being  the 
sensibility  of  kindness  when  the  object  of  suffering  is  visible 
to  our  senses ;  and  liberality  being  the  sense  of  kindness 
when  the  object  of  suffering  is  invisible  ;  one  having  the  ele- 
ments of  faith  in  it,  and  the  other  one  sensuous  elements], 
and  though  I  give  my  body  to  be  burned  [in  my  zeal  and 
fierce  addiction  to  my  own  views  of  the  truth],  and  have  not 
love,  I  am  nothing.  Love  suffereth  long,  and  is  kind ;  love 
envieth  not ;  love  vaunteth  not  itself,  is  not  puffed  up,  doth 
not  behave  itself  unseemly,  seeketh  not  her  own,  is  not  easily 
provoked,  thinketh  no  evil ;  rejoiceth  not  in  iniquity,  but  re- 
joiceth  in  the  truth ;  beareth  all  things,  believeth  all  things, 
hopeth  all  things,  endureth  all  things.    Love  never  faileth." 

What  a  fruit-tree  it  is  that  bears  all  this  fruit ! 
What  is  the  soul,  that  it  can  bring  forth  such  things  as 
are  enumerated  here  ?  We  are  coming  to  the  center 
according  to  the  Pauline  conception,  which  has  love  in 
it  as  the  essential  element.  And  see,  when  he  comes 
to  that  how  regnant  he  makes  it !  See  how  it  has  in 
it  the  prolificness  of  the  omniscient,  omnipresent,  om- 
nipotent God !  It  "  never  faileth."  It  has  in  it  im- 
mortality.   Everything  else  is  relative  to  it. 

"But  whether  there  be  prophecies,  they  [belonging  to 
this  particular  sphere,  —  belonging  to  time  and  circumstance] 
shall  fail;  whether  there  be  tongues,  they  shall  cease  [all 


292 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


languages  end  with  this  world] ;  whether  there  be  knowl- 
edge, it  shall  vanish  away.  [All  knowledge  here  is  relative, 
suggestive,  fugitive,  and  will  perish.  When  you  rise  to  see 
what  is  in  the  universal  realm,  all  that  you  see  here  will 
seem  like  fleeting  clouds  and  films.] 

"  For  we  know  in  part  [this  was  said  by  a  man  who  had  been 
in  the  seventh  heaven],  and  we  prophesy  in  part.  [Now 
Paul  never  would  do  for  a  theologian,  acknowledging,  as  he 
did,  that  he  knew  only  in  fragments.]  But  when  that  which 
is  perfect  is  come  [when  the  full  disclosure  of  men's  manhood 
is  made ;  when  men  have  been  educated  on  the  earth,  and 
have  passed  through  the  drill  of  life,  and  have  gone  through 
the  battle,  and  won,  and  have  ripened  the  Spirit  of  God  in 
themselves,  and  have  been  lifted  up  out  of  limitations  and 
hindrances],  then  that  which  is  in  part  shall  be  done  away." 

Well,  Paul,  what  then  about  that  other  state  ?  If 
all  that  is  so  glorious  and  grand  in  this  life  is  as  noth- 
ing ;  if  you  say  of  that  state,  "  Ah !  I  do  not  know  any 
more  about  that  than  I  knew  about  manhood  when  I 
was  a  child";  if  you  say,  "When  I  was  a  child,  I 
spake  as  a  child,  I  understood  as  a  child,  I  thought  as 
a  child,  but  when  I  became  a  man  I  put  away  child- 
ish things,"  and  that  is  your  representation  of  our  pres- 
ent condition  as  compared  with  our  future  condition, 
then  what  must  that  other  state  be  ? 

Now,  we  are  children ;  and  the  inspired  Pauline  idea 
of  heaven  is,  that  our  conception  of  it  is  as  far  from 
the  glory  of  the  reality,  as  the  visions  of  a  child  are 
from  the  experience  of  his  full  manhood.  He  says, 
"  Now  we  see  through  a  glass,  darkly ;  but  then,  face 
to  face :  now  I  know  in  part  [I,  the  chiefest  of  the 
apostles,  know  but  in  spots  and  fragments] ;  but  then 
shall  I  know  even  as  also  I  am  known." 


CHRISTIAN  MANHOOD. 


293 


Very  well,  then,  what  part  of  us  will  remain  ?  If  you 
say  that  the  understanding,  the  imagination,  and  all 
the  thousand  susceptibilities  and  sympathies  of  the 
soul  are  of  the  earth,  earthy,  shall  we  have  our  iden- 
tity in  the  other  sphere  ?  Shall  we  know  ourselves 
and  other  men  ?  Yes ;  for  there  are  certain  qualities 
that  constitute  the  great  conditions  of  our  personality 
which  never  perish,  which  do  not  change,  which  abide 
forever. 

"  Now  abideth  faith,  hope,  love." 

Faith  is  that  quality  of  a  man's  nature  by  which  he 
comes  into  the  realm  of  the  invisible.  Hope  is  that 
power  by  which  his  life  goes  forward  beyond  the  pres- 
ent sphere,  and  is  ever  multiplying  itself.  And  Love 
is  greater  than  either  of  these. 

WHY  PAUL  WAS  RIGHT. 

Now,  look  at  such  an  interpretation,  at  such  a  char- 
ter of  Christian  character  as  that,  and  tell  me  if  I  am 
not  warranted  in  saying  that  the  only  faculty  of  the 
soul  which  can  be  made  the  center  of  a  man's  charac- 
ter, and  about  which  you  can  rank  and  harmonize  all 
his  other  faculties,  is  the  faculty  of  love.  Look  at  it. 
What  part  of  a  man  is  it  that  refuses  to  submit  to 
love  where  it  exists? 

The  reason  not  only  submits  to  it,  but  takes  wider 
flights  and  clearer  sights  when  it  is  in  subordination 
to  love.  In  many  relations  the  reason  cannot  act  ex- 
cept under  the  influence  of  the  spirit  of  love. 

Let  reason  undertake  to  judge  hatred,  and  how  im- 
perfect is  its  judgment!  Let  reason  attempt  to  adju- 
dicate in  the  matter  of  pride,  and  how  blinded  is  its 


294 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


vision,  how  awry  are  its  conclusions,  how  warped  and 
partisan  are  its  methods  and  influences ! 

Now,  bring  love  into  the  soul,  with  its  quietude, 
with  its  sweetness,  with  its  harmonizing  nature,  and 
how  does  reason,  like  one  coming  out  of  a  dream  or  a 
fit  of  insanity,  see  things  as  they  are ;  and  how  does  it 
move  majestically  as  if  it  were  a  very  creature  of  God ! 

Bring  in  veneration  as  a  center,  and  how  many  pow- 
ers of  the  soul  are  in  insurrection !  Then  bring  in 
love,  and  how  everything  in  the  soul  is  regulated  and 
brought  into  a  state  of  willing  allegiance  ! 

There  is  nothing  in  the  constitution  of  man  to  which 
selfishness  yields  as  it  does  to  love.  I  do  not  know  of 
anything  that  is  more  prettily  selfish  than  a  petted  girl. 
She  is  the  delight  of  father  and  mother.  She  is 
beautiful.  She  is  accomplished.  She  is  universally 
attractive.  She  is  beloved  by  all  who  know  her ;  and 
in  a  thousand  little  pretty  ways  she  manifests  her 
selfishness ;  and  everybody  tolerates  it ;  and  all  the 
neighbors  say,  "  She  is  utterly  spoiled."  But  erelong, 
in  the  hour  of  disclosure,  she  finds  her  mate ;  she  loves, 
and  at  once  all  her  faults  and  failings  begin,  one  after 
another,  to  dissolve,  and  go  away,  like  snow  in  March. 
And,  by  and  by,  love  watches  the  cradle.  And  this 
creature,  that  father  had  to  serve,  and  mother  had  to 
serve,  and  the  servants  had  to  serve,  and  everybody 
had  to  serve,  and  toward  whom  ran  in  every  stream 
of  delight,  being  now  a  mother,  cares  nothing  for  par- 
ties and  visits,  —  cares  only  to  serve  that  little  unre- 
quiting  child.  And  all  night  she  will  give  up  her 
sleep  that  she  may  watch  over  it  if  it  be  sick,  and  all 
day  she  will  devote  herself  to  it.    And  she  is  joyous 


CHRISTIAN  MANHOOD. 


295 


as  a  bird  as  she  sits  and  sings  to  her  darling  in  the 
cradle.  And  that  which  wrought  so  marvelous  a  change 
in  her  was  love. 

Now,  there  is  nothing  but  the  elemental  power  of 
love  that  can  subdue  all  the  other  human  faculties  and 
make  them  revolve  about  it.  And  is  not  that  the  qual- 
ity, in  Jesus  Christ,  that  Paul  thought  of  when  he  said 
that  there  was  no  other  controlling  power,  no  other 
master-builder,  no  other  architect,  no  other  ground- 
plan,  of  the  soul,  like  that  which  was  in  Christ  Jesus, 
who  came  to  show  how  he  had  loved  the  world  ?  The 
charter  of  his  coming  was  this :  God  so  loved  the  world 
that  he  gave  his  Son  to  suffer  and  die  for  it.  Love,  that 
suffers;  that  bears  all  things;  that  strengthens  weak- 
ness ;  that  enlightens  darkness ;  that  restrains  impet- 
uosity ;  that  humbles  pride ;  that  sweetens  bitterness, 
yea,  and  acerbity ;  that  takes  from  men  all  things  rude, 
and  gives  them  all  things  refined ;  that  God  sent  into 
the  world  in  the  person  of  Jesus  Christ,  walking  in 
beauty  and  authority  and  power,  —  Love  said  to  all 
mankind,  "Lay  aside  ceremonial  sacrifices,  and  ordi- 
nances, and  rules,  and  regulations,  and  conform  your 
lives  to  this  living  pattern.  Here  is  godhood,  and 
therefore  here  is  manhood.  They  are  one  and  the 
same.  So,  build  accordingly."  And  then  what  ?  Be- 
cause you  are  of  God,  and  because  like  attracts  like, 
you  will  come  irresistibly  into  the  Divine  communion 
and  into  the  Divine  presence. 

THE  SUN  OF  RIGHTEOUSNESS. 

Now,  in  your  ministration  you  are  men-builders,  not 
in  a  general  sense  alone,  but  in  the  sense  of  the  eternal 


296 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


structure  of  character.  And  here  I  want  to  say  that 
if  any  man  thinks  this  kind  of  character  can  be  built 
without  Divine  influence,  I  pity  his  ignorance.  There 
are  a  great  many  men  who  say  that  they  have  all  the 
power  they  want,  and  that  they  do  not  depend  on  God; 
but  they  are  men  who  have  not  an  idea  of  inward 
character,  and  of  the  necessity  of  reconstruction.  I 
know  what  is  in  man ;  I  have  seen  it,  I  have  felt  it, 
I  have  wrestled  with  it ;  and  if  one  thing  lies  deeper 
in  my  thought  and  conviction  than  any  other,  it  is 
this :  that  without  the  direct  influx,  the  immediate  and 
efficacious  agency,  of  the  Divine  Spirit,  it  is  in  vain  to 
attempt  to  reconstruct  the  character  of  a  man,  and 
bring  out  in  him  that  manhood  which  is  the  true 
nature  of  mankind.  You  say,  No,  the  family  helps, 
and  the  laws  help " ;  but  do  you  not  know  that  the 
well-ordered  family  is  the  reflex  influence  of  the  Divine 
mind,  and  that  just  and  wise  laws  in  society  have 
stored  up  in  them  the  influence  that  has  come  from 
the  down-shining  of  God  upon  men  from  generation  to 
generation  ? 

There  is  nothing  more  beautiful  in  Tyndall's  writ- 
ings than  where  he  shows  that  all  forces  that  are 
working  in  the  world  are  solar  forces.  According  to 
his  theory,  it  is  the  sun  that  has  given  life  to  the  vast 
trees  and  plants  on  the  face  of  the  earth.  When,  by 
heat  from  wood  or  coal,  water  is  converted  into  steam, 
the  force  is  a  development  of  that  which  was  stored 
up  in  the  fuel,  and  which  has  come  to  itself  in  another 
form ;  and  thus  it  is  still  the  sun  that  does  the  work. 
So  institutions  store  up  Divine  influen<?es  through 
years  ;  and  when  they  act  they  are  indirect  and  second- 
ary forms  of  Divine  influence. 


CHRISTIAN  MANHOOD. 


297 


But  the  direct  influence  of  the  sun,  —  see  how  it 
works  everywhere  1  Did  you  ever  notice  a  tree  growing 
against  a  wall  ?  How  gently  it  grows  in  the  sunlight, 
that  is  so  charming,  so  bland,  so  sweet !  The  birds,  as 
with  glittering  wings  they  fly  through  the  air,  rejoice 
in  the  sunlight.  The  maiden  walks  forth  from  her  sick- 
chamber,  and  thanks  God  for  the  sunlight.  All  the 
globe  above  our  heads  is  a  vast  goblet,  as  it  were, 
filled  with  the  wine  of  sunlight.  What  is  so  harmless 
and  sweet  and  beautiful  as  the  sunlight  ?  And  yet, 
let  the  sunlight  go  on  working  on  the  w^illow,  —  the 
most  accommodating  of  trees,  that  waves  whichever 
way  it  is  coaxed  to  wave,  —  and  let  the  tree  crowd 
against  almost  any  wall,  and  it  will  push  it  down, 
whether  it  be  of  brick  or  stone.  The  simple  influence 
of  the  sun  in  things  that  have  life  in  them,  —  how 
mighty  it  is  ! 

Soul-growth  comes  from  the  influence  of  the  Divine 
sun,  as  really  as  vegetable  growth  comes  from  the  influ- 
ence of  the  visible  sun.  The  growth  of  the  soul  comes 
by  the  shining  of  the  Sun  of  Kighteousness,  in  whose 
beams  there  is  life  and  health  and  power  to  every  soul 
that  accepts  it. 

Here,  then,  we  come  to  a  ground  which  it  seems  to 
me  is  common,  or  may  be  common,  both  to  those  who 
are  engaged  in  church  work  and  those  who  are  engaged 
in  scientific  work. 

There  is  no  doctrine  in  which  men  believe  more  at 
this  day  than  in  evolution,  —  development,  going  on 
and  up,  greater  and  greater  unfolding.  And  men  talk 
of  going  from  nature  toward  civilization.  But  I  say 
that  civilization  is  nature,  —  the  highest  nature.    I  say 

13* 


298 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


that  the  gospel  of  Christ  is  seeking  the  same  thing 
which,  however  dimly  and  however  blindly,  science  is 
making  its  way  toward,  —  the  disclosure  of  the  power 
of  God  by  which  men  grow  ;  and  it  is  coming  to  be 
understood  that  they  grow  by  the  very  forces  which 
are  in  them,  harmonized  around  that  soul-center  love, 
which,  when  man  is  in  his  normal  condition,  controls 
everything  that  is  in  him. 

THE  PERFECT  MAN. 

This,  then,  is  my  estimate  of  sanctification.  It  is 
that  state  into  which  men  come  when  every  part  of 
their  nature  has  been  developed,  and  when  the  facul- 
ties have  been  subordinated  in  their  real  gradations. 
When  the  faculties  have  all  come  to  have  affinities 
with  the  central  controlling  elements  of  Divine  and 
human  love  in  the  soul  ;  when  that  love  is  the  center 
from  which  power  goes  out  and  stimulates  every  fac- 
ulty, —  then  men  are  perfect. 

When  I  look  at  "  perfect "  folks,  my  first  thought  is, 
always,  "  Are  they  more  loving  and  more  lovely  than 
other  folks  ? "  I  have  seen  many  perfect  people,  or 
people  thait  called  themselves  perfect,  and  have  often 
wished  that  I  felt  as  happy  about  being  perfect  as  they 
did  ;  but  when  I  apply  my  test  I  cannot  find  perfect 
folks.  There  are  those  who  think  they  are  perfect  be- 
cause they  do  not  commit  faults,  —  that  is,  because 
they  do  not  spill  over.  One  reason  why  they  do  not 
spill  over  is  because  there  is  so  little  in  them.  Some 
people  do  not  commit  many  faults,  because  there  is  not 
much  to  them.  They  consider  themselves  perfect,  be- 
cause they  think  their  will  is  continually  coincident 


> 

CHRISTIAN  MANHOOD. 


299 


with  the  Divine  will.  They  walk  in  that  pleasant  illu- 
sion. It  is  a  dream.  I  have  had  such  dreams, — 
though  not  when  I  was  awake.  I  have  had  splendid 
times  when  I  was  asleep,  and  have  waked  up  to  find 
I  had  been  dreaming,  There  are  men  w^ho  think  their 
will  is  in  accord  with  God's  will,  and  who  say,  "  Thy 
will  be  done,"  all  the  time,  whispering  it  to  themselves 
as  they  go  around.  They  have  had  a  comparatively 
quiet  and  pleasant  life,  and  they  think  that  they  agree 
with  God.  I  do,  too,  when  he  agrees  with  me.  When 
things  are  about  as  I  want  them,  I  am  always  content 
that  the  will  of  God  should  be  done  ;  but  when  they 
are  ordered  the  other  way,  then  how  ig  it  ? 

ISTow,  there  are  very  few  persons  who  have  attained 
perfection,  although  there  are  many  who  suppose 
themselves  to  be  perfect.  Some  persons  are  perfect  in 
the  same  way  that  a  man  is  obedient  to  his  master  who 
is  prevented  from  running  away  from  slavery  by  the 
cutting  off  of  his  legs.  He  will  not  run  away,  to  be 
sure  :  but  he  is  rendered  less  a  man  by  the  loss  of  his 
legs.  A  man  may  be  prevented  from  stealing  by  cut- 
ting his  hands  off ;  but  he  is  not  so  much  a  man  after 
his  hands  are  cut  off  as  he  was  before.  And  this  ascetic 
method  of  attempting  to  make  men  perfect  by  the  mu- 
tilation of  their  faculties,  is  one  which  takes  away  much 
of  their  manhood. 

My  conception  of  a  perfect  man  is  one  who  is  strong ; 
who  is  full  of  energy ;  full  of  appetites  and  passions, 
and,  therefore,  of  that  wonderful  force  which  is  wrought 
by  them,  or  w^hich  transforms  itself  into  auxiliary 
forces ;  full  of  life ;  full  of  thought-power  ;  full  of 
aesthetic  excellences ;  and,  above  all,  full  of  that  ceii- 


300 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


tral  element  of  love  to  which  all  other  influences  are 
subordinated,  and  which  is  itself  subordinate  to  God. 

Now,  give  me  a  man  like  this.  Where  do  you  find 
him,  —  the  man  of  liberty ;  the  man  of  infinite  large- 
ness ;  the  man  that  goes  freely  whither  he  will,  up  and 
down,  all  the  faculties  playing  in  harmony  with  the 
concert-pitch  of  the  universe,  which  is  love  ?  Show 
me  that  perfect  man.  I  have  never  seen  him.  I  do  not 
expect  to  see  him  on  earth.  It  is  my  business  to  lead 
people  toward  that  ideal ;  but  it  will  remain  an  ideal  in 
my  day.  None  the  less  should  we  seek  it,  however. 
None  the  less  should  our  ministry  point  to  it.  We  are 
to  preach  to  our  people  sanctification,  —  the  arranging 
and  harmonizing  of  all  the  faculties  of  the  mind  around 
about  love,  the  sacred  principle  of  the  Divine  nature ; 
the  all-governing  principle  of  heaven :  the  principle 
that  yet  is  to  transmute  men  from  the  animal  condi- 
tion to  the  angelic,  and  make  them  fit  companions  of 
God. 

THE  preacher's  MISSION. 

If  this  be  the  nature  of  your  ministry,  young  gentle- 
men, you  must  be  industrious.  It  will  not  do  for  you 
to  spend  your  time  with  books  alone.  You  must  know 
meUy  in  this  day.  It  is  not  a  small  thing  to  be  a 
minister  of  Christ.  To  be  a  mere  priest  is  a  very  little 
thing.  In  the  priestly  office  there  is  an  appointed 
round  of  duties  which  can  be  easily  performed.  But 
to  be  a  servant  of  souls ;  to  be  Christ's  educator  of 
men's  interior  nature;  to  st!and  in  thie  place  of  the 
Lord  Jesus,  not  in  his  majesty  of  power,  but  in  his 
spirit,  and  to  attempt  to  do  in  your  sphere  what  Christ 


CHRISTIAN  MANHOOD. 


301 


by  his  example  taught  you  to  do ;  to  know  men ;  to 
understand  their  weaknesses ;  to  perceive  their  sins, 
and  to  sympathize  with  them  and  sorrow  for  them  on 
account  of  their  infirmities,  and  bring  the  truth  so  to 
bear  on  them  as  to  fill  them  up,  each  in  the  particular 
spot  where  he  is  deficient,  and  give  proportion  and  har- 
mony to  every  part ;  to  preach  so  that  sanctification 
shall  be  the  end  of  your  ministration,  —  this  requires 
an  industry,  a  perseverance,  a  faith,  a  self-denial,  and 
an  intensity  of  love,  which  is  demanded  by  no  other 
profession.  If  one  is  a  servant  of  men  for  Christ's 
sake  and  for  man's  sake,  there  is  nothing  that  he  can 
aspire  to  which  is  so  noble  as  the  work  which  he  has 
chosen.  It  is  the  highest  calling  to  which  a  man  can 
devote  himself.  And  when  you  return  and  come  to 
Zion  with  songs  and  everlasting  joy  upon  your  heads ; 
when  out  of  the  heavenly  gate  come  the  multitudes 
whom  your  ministry  has  served,  to  welcome  you,  —  in 
that  hour  it  sliall  be  revealed  to  you  that  he  who  serves 
the  eternities  by  serving  the  souls  of  men  and  women, 
is  greater  than  he  who  builds  temples,  or  paints  pic- 
tures, or  governs  empires,  or  secures  to  himself  all  the 
sweet  and  desirable  things  of  earth. 

Our  high  mission,  our  noble  calling,  is  to  build  up 
souls,  to  perfect  the  Christian  life,  and  to  make  man- 
hood acceptable  to  God,  and  radiant  in  the  sight  of  all 
men. 


XII. 


LIFE  AND  IMMOETALITY. 

March  19,  1874. 

AUL,  in  arguing  the  supremacy  of  moral 
forces  over  physical,  in  one  place  speaks  of 
God  as  having  chosen  the  "  things  that  are 
not  to  bring  to  naught  the  things  that  are/' 
—  by  which  we  understand  that  he  has  chosen  the 
forces  that  are  above  our  natural  senses.  Supersen- 
suous  truths,  truths  of  the  other  life,  the  invisible 
truths  of  man's  spirituality,  —  these  are  stronger  than 
the  embattled  forces  of  matter,  whether  in  the  house- 
hold, or  in  society,  or  in  the  church.  The  subtle  secret 
spring  of  highest  power  lies  in  the  direction  of  those 
truths  which  can  have  no  exposition  in  language  or  in 
form,  but  which  dwell  in  the  innermost  consciousness 
or  experience  of  men. 

I  purpose,  this  afternoon,  to  speak  of  the  power 
which  lies  in  the  invisible,  in  respect  to  the  truths  of 
the  future  and  man's  relation  to  the  future  life ;  and 
of  the  uses  which  are  to  be  made  in  your  ministry  of 
the  great  truth  of  continuous  existence  in  the  future 
spiritual,  invisible  state. 


LIFE  AND  IMMORTALITY. 


303 


IMMORTALITY  IN  THE  BIBLE. 

Every  one  who  reflects  for  a  moment  will  be  struck 
with  the  fact  that  this  is  a  truth  which  never  made  its 
appearance  in  the  Old  Testament.  It  would  be  wrong 
to  say  that  the  doctrine  of  immortality  was  not  under- 
stood by  the  old  Jews.  We  can  scarcely  conceive  of 
experiences  such  as  David  and  other  saints  of  old  had 
in  respect  to  Jehovah,  of  enthusiasm,  love,  and  soul- 
prostration  in  connection  with  the  idea  of  divinity, 
infinite  and  eternal,  that  did  not  carry  with  them 
morally,  and  in  some  way  also  inferentially,  the  doc- 
trine of  continued  existence  on  the  part  of  God's  peo- 
ple ;  but  in  the  Old  Testament,  so  far  as  I  know, 
never,  in  a  single  instance,  is  it  more  than  hinted  at, 
or  even  then  used  other  than  simply  as  a  record  of 
soul-experience.  Not  once  is  it  there  spoken  of  as  a 
dynamical  force  ;  not  once  as  a  force  in  the  realm  of 
emotion.  It  does  not  clearly  appear  in  the  Old  Tes- 
tament in  any  way.  It  comes  out  in  the  later 
experiences  of  the  Psalmist  and  the  prophets ;  but  no- 
where as  a  cogent  motive  and  persuasion  to  good,  nor 
a  dissuasion  from  evil.  I  do  not  remember  a  single 
instance  in  which  continued  existence  is  there  made 
use  of  as  a  motive.  Still  less  do  I  know  of  an  instance 
in  the  Old  Testament  where  the  future  penalties  of 
ill-desert  and  misconduct,  and  the  rewards  of  right 
conduct,  are  distinctly  employed  as  an  argument  in 
favor  of  right  living. 

This  is  a  fact  that  bears  in  a  great  many  different 
directions  which  I  shall  not  at  all  pursue. 

When  we  turn  to  the  New  Testament,  precisely  the 


304 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


antithesis  is  seen.  It  is  steeped  in  the  doctrine  of 
continuous  existence.  The  great  after-life  overhangs 
the  New  Testament  as  the  heavens  overhang  the  earth ; 
and  as  the  light  which  brings  color  down  upon  every- 
thing on  the  earth  is  derived  from  the  overbrooding 
heavens,  so  in  the  New  Testament,  colors,  proportions, 
and  I  had  almost  said  moral  qualities,  are  the  result 
of  this  great  truth  of  the  continued  existence  of  im- 
mortality, brought  to  life  and  light  by  Jesus  Christ. 

EFFECT  OF  IMMORTALITY  ON  THE  MIND. 

The  importance  of  this  truth  I  cannot  overstate.  I 
^  canpot  overstate  the  importance  of  it  to  your  ministry. 
\  I  wish,  in  the  first  place,  to  discuss  very  briefly  several 
relations  of  this  truth  to  the  different  parts  of  the 
mind;  then  to  sketch  the  Scriptural  or  structural  method 
of  presenting  the  future  life ;  and  then  to  consider,  still 
more  briefly,  how  you  shall  use  this  truth. 

THE  REASON. 

I  can  hardly  conceive  of  the  reason  as  it  existed  or 
exists  unleavened  by  the  peculiar  element  of  belief  in 
continuous  existence.  There  is  a  quality,  there  are 
ranges  and  habitudes,  given  by  this  faith,  which  the  rea- 
son could  not  have  had  in  any  other  way,  even  where  it 
is  exercised  in  relation  to  questions  which  are  artificial, 
but  which  are  discussed  in  the  light  of  eternity  and 
infinity.  Even  in  those  practices  which  obtained,  fault- 
ily, I  think,  in  times  gone  by,  among  the  schoolmen 
(who  were  refined,  and  who  discussed  things  as  they 
related  to  the  moral  government  of  God,  not  in  time, 
nor  as  to  ethics,  but  as  they  stood  associated  with  the 


LIFE  AND  IMMORTALITY. 


305 


eternity  of  the  past  and  the  eternity  of  the  future), 
this  belief  was  the  source  of  that  strength  which  comes 
by  projecting  men's  minds  in  such  directions  for  long- 
continued  periods.  They  gave  a  certain  sort  of  richness, 
and  a  certain  power  of  holding  on,  to  the  understand- 
ing. They  gave  to  it  also  a  certain  subtleness  and 
refinement  which,  I  think,  it  can  never  have  by  any 
discussion  of  matter,  nor  by  any  consideration  of  the 
relations  of  men  in  this  sphere.  There  is  something  in 
the  idea  of  extension,  whether  it  be  of  space  or  of  time, 
which  educates  the  reason,  and  gives  it  a  breadth  and 
quality  which  could  be  given  by  no  other  means. 

THE  IMAGINATION. 

Consider  the  relations  of  immortality  to  the  imagina- 
tion. It  may  almost  be  said  that  a  belief  in  immor- 
tality depends  upon  the  existence  of  the  imagination. 
Certainly  it  is  by  the  imagination  principally  that  we 
understand,  not  only  that  the  worlds  were  made,  but 
that  they  are  to  be  unmade  and  made  again.  What- 
ever conception  we  have,  of  what  the  new  heaven 
and  the  new  earth  are  to  be,  comes  through  the 
imagination. 

Faith  is  only  a  modification  of  the  imagination. 
Whoever  wrote  the  Hebrews  defined  faith  to  be  "the 
evidence  of  things  not  seen." 

A  moral  imagination  takes  into  view  the  great  in- 
visible or  unseen  world;  and  here  it  is  that  the  im- 
agination becomes  real,  fruitful,  strong,  allying  itself 
with  memory  and  with  present  experiences  for  added 
material;  and  with  discrimination  and  the  power  of 
hope  for  projection  into  the  future. 


306 


LECTURES  ON  PKEACHING. 


The  imagination  in  dealing  with  the  great  moral 
realm  becomes  an  immense  power;  and  it  is  to  be 
noticed,  in  the  structure  of  the  Scriptures,  that  there  is 
a  great  deal  more  instruction  conveyed  to  the  reason 
through  tlie  imagination  than  is  conveyed  to  the  im- 
agination through  the  reason.  In  the  infantile  condi- 
tion of  every  family  the  imagination  deals  in  fictions, 
—  fictions  that  are  resemblances ;  and  it  oftentimes 
is  the  case,  under  such  circumstances,  that  falsity 
is  nearer  the  truth  than  fact.  It  is  not  unfrequently 
true  that  fiction  is  nearer  to  reality  than  reality  is  to 
itself,  —  that  is  to  say,  in  the  impression  which  is 
produced  on  the  minds  of  men.  If  you  were  to  make 
to  a  child  a  complex  philosophical  statement  of  an 
abstract  problem  of  political  economy,  it  would  not  be 
true  to  him ;  some  phantasmagoric  conception  would 
be  framed  in  his  mind :  whereas,  if  you  were  to  make 
a  picture  for  him,  or  tell  him  a  fable  which  had  not  a 
word  of  truth  in  it,  it  might  convey  the  idea  to  his 
mind  better  than  the  thing  itself  would. 

So  it  is  true  that  the  imagination  oftentimes  has 
this  power,  as  a  formative  influence ;  as  a  precursor 
of  the  reason ;  as  a  genius  that  nurses  it  and  ministers 
to  it. 

The  imagination  offers  one  of  the  most  instructive 
sides  of  the  mind.  It  is  one  of  the  sides  through 
which  knowledge  can  best  come  to  men;  and  it  is 
employed  throughout  the  Scriptures,  eminently,  as  a 
vehicle  for  imparting  knowledge.  All  the  instruction 
which  we  get  of  higher  spheres,  of  higher  beings, 
and  of  our  continued  existence  comes  through  this 
faculty. 


LIFE  AND  IMMORTALITY. 


307 


THE  CONSCIENCE. 

The  conception  of  the  future  and  invisible  life,  and 
of  progress  in  that  life,  materially  affects  also  the 
conscience,  making  it  strong  and  acute.  But  that 
is  not  all.  Ethics  whets  the  conscience,  and  prac- 
tice drills  it;  but  the  sense  of  right  and  wrong  is 
something  larger  than  mere  conventions  and  rules 
make  it,  and  something  larger  than  society  makes  it. 
It  is  in  reality  a  part  of  the  essential  constitution  of 
things,  not  being  localized  nor  secularized,  but  having 
infinite  scope. 

Conscience  has  in  it,  and  in  its  relations,  something 
of  sublimity,  as  well  as  of  terror.  There  is  such  a 
thing  as  sublimity  of  joy  and  sublimity  of  fear ;  and 
it  stands  related  to  the  elements  of  necessity,  which, 
beginning  and  developing  imperfectly  here,  go  on  in 
volume  and  momentum  and  power  forever  and  for- 
ever. A  large  conscience  has  in  it  a  juridical  power 
which  gives  it  breadth  and  potency.  A  small  con- 
science, a  nibbling,  pinching  conscience,  is  like  a  petty 
justice  of  the  peace  who  thinks  of  his  own  dignity, 
and  who  is  but  a  pygmy  compared  with  a  great 
statesman,  or  a  high-minded  king,  or  a  judge  built  on 
the  true  pattern.  The  larger  you  can  make  your  con- 
science, the  broader,  the  grander,  the  more  far-reaching, 
will  be  the  character  which  will  proceed  from  it.  And, 
whatever  its  conventional  training  may  be,  if  it  grows 
up  under  the  light  of  a  coming  eternity,  it  will  take 
on  noble  proportions. 


308 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


THE  AFFECTIONS. 

The  same  is  true  of  the  affections,  on  which  a  sense 
of  continuous  existence  in  the  invisible  realm  has  the 
same  effect  that  the  sunlight  has  on  flowers,  when  it 
makes  them  blossom.  It  is  easy  to  begin  loving ;  but 
how  hard  it  is  to  keep  on  !  It  is  easy  to  begin,  on  our 
generous  side,  and  see  persons  in  ideal  lights.  Is  there 
anything  more  beautiful  in  conduct  than  she  who  has 
entranced  us?  How  admirable  is  the  movement  of  her 
judgment  and  mind,  as  we  stand  adoring  her !  Every 
motion  is  grace,  and  every  word  is  music.  So  it  goes 
on,  during  all  the  period  in  which  we  worship.  So 
long  as  we  adore  an  object,  that  object  is  beautiful  and 
bright  to  us.  But  by  and  by  there  comes  a  junction 
by  which  the  two  are  made  one ;  and  they  act  together 
on  a  lower  plane,  where  they  are  tempted  to  a  thou- 
sand failings  and  errors  of  life,  and  where  they  are 
often  overcome  by  temptation ;  and  gradually  there 
comes  a  sense  of  imperfection,  of  limitation  in  judg- 
ment, and  of  mistakes  committed.  Innumerable  little 
trivialities  occur  They  begin  to  see  things  differently. 
The  question  arises  as  to  who  shall  be  the  trunk  and 
who  shall  twine.  All  these  things,  and  many  more, 
come  in  to  mar  the  picture  which  had  been  formed. 
Its  bright  colors  are  tarnished.  The  vision  is  lowered 
from  that  land  out  of  which  we  thought  nothing  could 
be  lowered,  —  the  land  of  imagination  and  romance,  — 
into  the  realm  of  actuality.  And  then,  0,  what  alter- 
nations of  long  and  weary  wastes  of  common  experience, 
with  occasional  refreshments !  What  sad  and  foggy 
days  of  indifference !    How  poor,  oftentimes,  is  wedded 


LIFE  AND  IMMORTALITY. 


309 


life,  or  life  in  conjunctions  of  friendship,  because  there 
is  not  one  in  ten  thousand  that  is  made  good  enough  to 
keep  present  to  the  reason  and  the  moral  sense  the 
aspects  of  aspiration  of  the  higher  nature. 

Young  gentlemen,  if  you  want  to  love,  love  must  be 
a  thing  that  is  immortal.  It  must  be  projected  in  the 
imagination  far  beyond  the  sphere  of  the  body  and  the 
realm  of  time.  You  must  learn  to  see  the  things 
which  you  love  in  their  higher  life,  in  their  coming 
glory;  and  w^hatever  repairs  of  love  are  made  must 
needs  be  made  by  heavenly  mechanics.  If  one  could 
only  train  himself  evermore  to  lift  up  against  the 
background  of  immortality  the  things  that  are  dear 
to  him  and  that  he  would  hold  dear,  forever,  and 
see  them  as  they  are  to  be,  and  imagine  them  as 
they  shall  be  when  God  has  passed  the  final  finishing 
hand  over  them,  how  grand  and  glorious  w^ould  affec- 
tion become ! 

We  do  not  bathe  our  hearts  enough  in  the  other  life. 
We  do  not  often  enough  send  our  friends,  in  imagina- 
tion, into  the  ethereal  heights  where  w^e  shall  see  them, 
above  the  vulgar  elements  of  secular  life,  in  the  alti- 
tudes and  beatitudes  of  a  growing  and  eternal  love. 

THIS  WORLD,  IN  THE  LIGHT  OF  IMMORTALITY. 

Heaven  is  necessary  to  earth ;  and  so  a  conception 
of  continuous  existence  in  the  life  to  come  is,  by  parity 
of  reasoning,  necessary  to  a  right  consideration  of  men 
on  earth.  It  is  almost  impossible  for  men  to  project 
themselves  very  far  in  this  world  without  finding  that 
they  are,  on  that  account,  losing  the  sympathy  of  men 
around  about  them.    Elective  affinities,  therefore,  take 


310 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


the  place  of  brotherhood.  So  men  with  the  imagina- 
tion and  the  reason  highly  cultivated  look,  if  not  with 
contempt,  yet  with  coldness,  on  the  lower  rank  of  men 
who  have  no  intellectual  development,  or  no  ideas  in 
common  with  theirs,  by  which  they  can  come  into 
genial  and  intimate  fellowship  with  them. 

You  will  see  in  society  that  men  tend  to  classify 
themselves  all  the  while.  Men  of  genius  are  strongly 
drawn  toward  men  of  geuius.  Men  of  common  pur- 
suits are  powerfully  drawn  together.  The  community 
is  perpetually  stratifying  itself  And  there  is  no  harm 
in  this,  provided  the  upper  classes  are  perpetually  a 
drawing-up  force  to  the  lower.  It  is  because  there  is 
selfishness  in  this  that  there  is  harm  in  it. 

There  must  be  some  way,  therefore,  in  which  men 
can  make  up  for  the  deficiencies  which  exist  in  those 
about  them,  if  they  would  feel  a  vivid,  keen  sense  of 
interest  in  them.  But  when  I  think  that  men  are  to 
be  hereafter  not  what  they  are  here ;  when  I  think  of 
the  poor  ignorant  men  who  are  inordinately  developed 
in  this  faculty,  and  undeveloped  in  that ;  when  I  think 
of  men  who  are  overwrought  in  some  directions,  and 
underwrought  in  others ;  when  I  see  men  suppressed 
and  kept  down  by  their  circumstances  and  by  the 
tyranny  of  their  fellow-men,  I  have  to  find  hope  for 
them  in  the  future.  When  T  see  those  creatures  that 
seem  to  dodge  between  the  animal  and  the  man,  so 
that  we  almost  doubt  where  to  rank  them,  I  cannot 
look  at  them  as  they  are,  —  certainly  when  I  have  con- 
scious sensitiveness  to  purity,  and  refinement,  and  love, 
and  beauty,  and  dignity,  and  amplitude  of  manhood,  — 
and  have  a  feeling  of  brotherhood  toward  them.    It  is 


LIFE  AND  IMMORTALITY. 


311 


only  when  I  say,  looking  at  them  by  the  help  of  imagi- 
nation, "  0,  these  are  but  the  seeds,  and  these  creatures 
shall  yet  be  lifted  up,  and  opened,  and  carried  forward, 
and  developed  in  the  other  life  !  1  stand  not  before  the 
flower,  but  before  the  seed  or  the  bulb,"  —  it  is  only 
then  that  I  can  look  with  complacency  upon  them. 

What  homelier  things  are  there  than  gladiolus  roots  ? 
But  when,  in  the  autumn  or  spring,  I  plant  them  in 
beds,  I  never  look  at  them  except  with  pleasure,  be- 
cause I  think  of  those  spikes  which  I  shall  erelong 
see  covered  with  blossoms.  I  have  seen  them,  and  I 
therefore  have  faith  that  I  shall  see  them  again. 

So  I  look  upon  the  homeliest  of  human  roots  and 
bulbs,  and  descry  in  their  future  condition  glorious 
attributes.  The  habit  of  associating  them,  not  with 
the  baseness  of  their  present  state,  not  with  their  mate- 
rial life,  not  with  their  secular  experience,  but  with  the 
invisible,  with  the  power  of  the  world  to  come,  with 
the  glory  of  God,  resting  upon  their  elevated  natures,  — 
this  enables  me,  when  I  look  upon  them,  to  gain  a 
conception  of  something  that  dignifies  and  beautifies 
even  the  present.  I  do  not  know  how  we  can  be 
Christian  democrats  unless  we  estimate  men  by  what 
they  are  to  be,  and  not  by  what  they  are.  I  cannot  kiss 
unwashed  folks,  who  are  repulsive  to  me  both  in  body 
and  mind,  except  when  I  see  the  invisible  that  is  in 
them  and  the  future  life  to  which  they  are  coming. 
When  I  can  see  through  the  opaque  that  covers  them, 
then  I  have  that  which  destroys  the  disagreeableness 
of  this  mortal  state. 

A  mother,  hesitating,  knows  not  why  she  is  so  drawn 
to  that  wretched,  tottering,  unshapen,  disfigured  crea- 


312 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


ture ;  and  in  a  moment  she  rushes  to  him.  It  is  her 
son  that  now  she  sees,  and  not  his  hideous  outward 
garb,  but  the  inwardness  of  her  old  remembered  love 
for  him. 

There  is  a  power  of  love  in  the  human  soul  that  can 
extend  itself  to  all  ranks  and  conditions,  and  can  see 
them  as  God  sees  them,  —  as  they  are  to  be,  and  not  as 
they  are  ;  and  the  fellowship  which  is  necessary  among 
mankind  demands  this.  If  you  sweep  out  of  life  the 
doctrine  of  after-existence  by  bringing  in  the  doctrine 
of  annihilation,  or  the  cold  philosophical  declaration 
that  there  is  no  evidence  of  man's  continuance  beyond 
the  grave,  which  is  to  us  substantially  the  doctrine  of 
man's  non-existence  in  a  world  to  come,  —  if  you  do 
this  you  might  as  well  spread  sackcloth  over  the  heav- 
ens and  expect  agriculture  and  horticulture  to  go  on 
in  the  earth,  as  to  expect  under  such  circumstances  to 
have  life  go  on  with  its  amenities,  sweetnesses,  and 
inspirations. 

The  whole  conception  of  manhood,  as  it  has  existed 
since  the  prevalence  of  Christianity  ;  the  conception  of 
the  best  parts  of  our  nature ;  the  conception  of  the 
subtlest  elements  of  admiration,  and  reverence,  and 
trust  in  men,  —  that  conception  is  founded  not  simply 
on  what  a  man  is,  i)ut  on  what  he  is  to  be. 

We  have  to  take  men  as  we  eat  fish.  We  can- 
not eat  fish  as  they  are  when  they  are  caught.  They 
must  be  scaled,  the  head  must  be  taken  off,  the 
fins  must  be  removed,  the  tail  must  be  cut  off,  the 
bones  must  be  taken  out ;  and  what  is  left  is  all  that 
is  really  good. 

We  have  to  take  a  man  with  allowances  here  and 


LIFE  AND  IMMORTALITY. 


313 


there :  and  when  you  conceive  of  a  man  with  all  his 
faults  taken  away ;  when  you  sit  with  a  critical  and 
cynical  eye,  and  analyze  him,  saying,  "  So  much  good 
for  reason,  so  much  for  moral  sense,  so  much  for  the 
affections,  so  much  for  comely  appearance,  and  so  much 
for  graceful  manners,  the  rest  is  good  for  nothing"  ;  — 
when  thus  you  take  off  a  man's  scales  and  fins,  and 
everything  external,  there  is  not  a  great  deal  left  of 
him,  —  only  just  a  mouthful. 

But  when  you  begin  the  other  process,  —  that  of 
synthesis ;  when  you  take  the  faulty  faculty,  and  build 
it  up  without  blemish,  without  spot,  without  wrinkle ; 
when  you  take  the  imagination  and  eclaircize  it,  and 
give  it  horizon ;  when  you  take  the  moral  sense,  and 
give  it  health  and  tone  and  power ;  when  you  look  at 
men,  and  habituate  yourself  to  look  at  them  in  their 
heavenly  aspects,  and  think  what  they  are  to  be  in 
the  far  future,  —  you  will  find  that  it  will  draw  you 
nearer  to  them.  It  will  make  friendship  dearer  and 
more  sacred  to  you.  It  will  make  the  human  race 
seem  more  to  you  than  mere  aphides  or  vermin,  grop- 
ing upon  the  face  of  the  earth.  But  otherwise  they 
seem  very  insignificant. 

Why,  to-day,  the  whole  continent  of  Africa  would 
hardly  make  one  single  full-grown  man,  with  qualities 
such  as  those  which  enter  into  manhood  with  us.  0, 
how  mean  and  cheap  a  man  is,  judged  of  by  what  he 
appears  to  be  in  many  parts  of  this  world  !  A  million 
men  might  be  slaughtered  in  China  to-day,  and  the 
world  would  not  lose  an  idea  or  a  function.  As  the 
sheep  of  the  field,  perishing,  leave  nothing  to  be 
missed,  so  there  are  nations  that  are  of  such  little 

VOL.  III.  14 


314 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


worth  that  if  they  were  annihilated  the  world  would 
miss  nothing. 

I  cannot  bear  to  think  that  the  old  world  is  carrying 
such  a  worthless  burden ;  and  I  gain  relief  from  the 
anguish  of  the  thought  by  turning  to  the  life  and  ex- 
ample and  teachings  of  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ.  He 
gives  us  assurance  that  the  future  of  mankind  will  be 
different  from  their  present  condition.  In  the  light  of 
the  New  Testament  men  mount  up ;  they  bud ;  they 
blossom ;  they  bear  fruit ;  and  why  should  we  not  give 
them  the  advantage  of  the  disclosures  which  have  been 
made,  through  the  Saviour,  of  their  state  in  the  world 
to  come  ?  Why  should  we  not  couple  ourselves  with 
our  race,  not  by  cold  scientific  notions  of  fact,  but  by 
the  inspiration  of  the  Holy  Ghost,  by  the  revelation  of 
Scripture,  and  by  that  blessed  power  by  which  faith  — 
the  evidence  of  things  not  seen  —  acts. 

THE  BIBLE  VIEW  OF  THE  FUTURE. 

The  other  life  is  presented  to  us  in  Scripture  both 
in  light  and  in  shadow.  It  has  its  dark  side  and  it  has 
its  bright  side.  The  New  Testament,  however,  uses 
the  bright  side  in  immense  disproportion  to  the  dark,  — 
as  it  should.  The  other  life  is  a  sphere  in  which  men 
reap  what  they  sow  in  this.  If  they  sow  to  the  flesh 
they  reap  corruption.  The  world  to  come  is  a  land 
where  the  natural  results  of  wrong-doing  work  them- 
selves out. 

This  view  of  the  future  inspires  fear  and  sadness. 
Fear  always  works  toward  repression.  It  has  no  aspi- 
ration in  it.  Its  tendency  is  to  drag  one  downward 
toward  the  flesh.    But  it  is  indispensable  in  the  early 


LIFE  AND  IMMORTALITY. 


315 


periods  of  national  existence  or  human  life.  It  cannot 
be  dispensed  with  in  the  lower  stages  of  the  develop- 
ment of  mankind.  And  as  every  man,  in  his  personal 
experience,  passes  through  what  is  equivalent  to  the 
savage  condition  of  the  race  itself ;  as  every  child  is  at 
first  a  beast,  an  animal  merely,  and  rises  up  through  all 
the  stages  of  unfolding  into  its  own  little  round,  as  the 
race  has  already  done  in  its  larger  round ;  so  there  is  a 
necessity  that  there  should  be  a  certain  amount  of  fear 
to  hold  men  back,  to  restrain  them,  and  to  teach  them 
to  adapt  means  to  ends.  We  are  not,  therefore,  to  omit 
or  to  shrink  from  such  delineations  of  the  dark  side 
of  continuous  existence  in  the  world  to  come,  as  shall 
excite  in  men  necessary  fear.  But,  after  all,  while  our 
Master,  more  than  any  other  writer  or  teacher  of  the 
New  Testament,  dealt  with  the  sterner  features  of 
continued  existence,  the  characteristic  element  of  his 
instruction  is  hope,  as  a  power  of  salvation.  It  is  the 
conception  of  a  continued  life  of  joy,  it  is  the  vision  of 
future  blessedness,  that  gives  to  the  New  Testament  its 
peculiar  and  distinctive  color. 

ADMINISTRATION  OF  HOPE  AND  FEAR. 

What  proportion  of  fear  or  of  hope  you  are  to  em- 
ploy in  your  preaching  you  cannot  determine  by  any 
mathematical  rule.  If  I  were  to  ask  a  physician, 
"What  proportion  of  diluents  or  of  astringents  ought 
one  to  employ  in  his  medical  practice  ? "  he  ^vould 
laugh  at  me,  and  say,  "  That  depends  upon  the  organi- 
zation of  the  patient,  and  upon  what  his  disease  is." 
You  cannot  say  that  a  physician  ought  to  use  diluents 
twice  where  he  uses  astringents  once ;  or  that  he  ought 


316 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


to  use  astringents  five  times  where  he  uses  diluents 
twice.  The  amount  of  each  to  be  used  will  vary 
continuously  according  to  circumstances.  And  the  idea 
of  attempting  to  preach  doctrines  in  given  proportions, 
judged  of  by  exact  relations,  saying,  "  This,  being  the 
great  central  view,  must  be  preached  just  so  much; 
and  that  is  a  collateral  view,  and  must  be  preached  so 
much,''  —  the  idea  of  preaching  thus  according  to  an 
imaginary  scheme  is  absurd,  preposterous.  You  are  to 
preach  at  one  time  one  view,  and  at  another  time 
another  view,  according  to  their  relations  to  what  you 
have  to  do  upon  the  human  mind. 

How  often  shall  I  prune  my  vines  ?  That  depends 
upon  how  many  vines  I  have,  upon  their  particular 
kind,  upon  what  soil  they  are  in,  upon  whether  they 
grow  rampantly  or  not,  and  upon  what  they  need. 
Frequently  we  prune  vines  by  pinching  them  in,  in- 
stead of  using  the  knife,  to  make  them  grow  right. 

And  so  it  is  in  regard  to  the  great  truths  of  hope  and 
fear.  We  are  to  administer  them  with  reference  to  the 
mind-qualities  with  which  we  have  to  deal,  and  with 
reference  to  the  state  or  condition  of  those  mind-quali- 
ties, in  each  particular  parish;  and  respecting  these 
things  every  man  of  you  must  judge  for  himself. 

PICTURES  OF  HEAVEN. 

The  Scriptural  revelation  of  the  life  that  is  to  come 
is  pictorial,  and  and  not  literal.  That  there  are  elements 
in  it  which  will  be  found  to  have  been  true  of  our 
earthly  experience  there  can  be  no  doubt;  still,  the 
structural  method  of  the  New  Testament  in  revealing 
our  future  life  is  one  which  addresses  itself  to  us  through 


LIFE  AND  IMMORTALITY. 


317 


our  imagination,  through  our  reason,  through  our  affec- 
tions, and  through  our  sentiments.  It  is  a  sublime 
auroral  fresco.  Of  course,  the  best  things,  both  nega- 
tive and  positive,  were  taken  to  reveal  the  heavenly 
land.  The  things  which  men  on  earth  feel  to  be  the 
greatest  grievances,  —  the  lash,  the  dungeon,  the  sword, 
disease,  poverty,  over-matched  toil,  unendurable  weak- 
ness, fatigue,  disappointments,  sorrows,  the  wrenching 
off  of  branches,  the  flowing  of  tears  in  grief,  deeply 
wounded  affections,  —  these  things  one  who  lives  long 
learns  to  recognize.  They  are  peculiarities  belonging 
to  this  lower  sphere.  They  are  the  negatives  by  which 
heaven  is  described  as  a  place  where  men  never  tire ; 
where  there  is  no  night ;  where  no  tears  are  shed ; 
where  sickness  does  not  come ;  where  nothing  molests 
or  makes  afraid.  If  fear  were  taken  away  from  the 
myriads  of  earth,  what  a  translation  it  would  be !  A 
land  without  fear,  —  what  a  land  that  must  be  !  Such 
negatives  are  very  significant. 

But  the  positives  are  also  very  signficant.  Things 
in  their  best  estate  are  used  to  represent  heaven.  The 
noblest  affections,  carried  up  to  the  point  of  effluence 
or  ecstasy,  are  employed  for  this  purpose ;  and  although 
a  singing  man  might  imagine  that  heaven  was  a  mag- 
nificent class  of  singers  standing  about  the  throne  and 
singing  the  best  hymns  out  of  the  best  collections, 
yet  if  you  look  at  in  its  larger  and  better  aspects, 
heaven  is  that  state  in  which  the  human  affections  are 
carried  up  to  their  highest  condition,  and  where  they 
act  with  spontaneity  and  force,  forever  pouring  them- 
selves out  in  ecstasy.  This  is  the  larger  meaning  of 
praise  and  worship,  —  the  overflow  of  vital  souls  in  a 


318 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


land  without  fatigue,  under  the  inspiration  of  the  Divine 
presence,  where  they  can  bear  perpetual  rapture,  as 
they  cannot  bear  it  in  the  physical  body. 

We  are  to  use  the  Bible  just  as  it  is,  in  so  far  as  it 
does  us  any  good.  I  confess  that  when  it  talks  to  me 
about  kings  with  crowns  on  their  heads,  I  wink  and  go 
on.  I  do  not  care  about  kings.  That  figure  is  without 
force  in  democratic  communities.  If  king  means  any- 
thing to  you,  it  is  because  you  place  an  artificial 
importance  upon  it.  It  is  because  you  have  poured 
cologne- water  on  it,  which  has  a  fragrance  that  does  not 
belong  to  the  word  itself  Once,  kings  fascinated  the 
imagination  of  the  world;  and  to  say  to  the  Jews 
that  they  were  to  be  kings  and  priests  to  God  was  to 
set  their  imaginations  on  fire;  but  to  tell  me  that  I 
shall  ever  be  a  priest  in  heaven  brings  no  light  and  no 
joy  to  my  mind.  It  makes  the  future  very  stiff  and 
very  disagreeable  to  my  conception. 

It  is  not  until,  catching  the  structural  genius  of  the 
New  Testament,  —  its  mode  of  representation,  —  we 
take  the  best  things  which  have  been  revealed  to  men, 
the  noblest  traits  which  Christianity  has  brought  out, 
the  most  royal  experiences  which  have  been  known  to 
human  nature,  and  put  them  together  and  call  them 
heaven,  that  we  shall  come  to  a  conception  of  the 
future  which  shall  be  satisfying  to  our  souls.  And  we 
have  a  right  to  make  our  heaven  thus,  so  that  it  shall 
shine  with  radiance,  and  come  to  us  with  a  sense  of 
personality:  so  God  permits  us  to  make  our  heaven 
for  ourselves.  Our  heaven  is  a  picture  which  we  paint 
by  our  imagination,  and  into  which  we  put  what  is 
most  precious  in  this  world,  all  the  while  remembering 


LIFE  AND  IMMORTALITY. 


319 


that  it  is  but  a  faint  representation  of  the  heaven  to 
which  we  are  going. 

INDIVIDUAL  CONCEPTIONS  OF  HEAVEN. 

One  impression  of  heaven  is  that  it  is  a  good  place 
to  escape  to,  out  of  hell ;  and  in  that  sense  it  is  a  kind 
of  insurance  office  where  a  man  gets  his  policy  with 
which  he  hopes  to  get  through  this  world  safely. 

But  as  you  go  on,  it  becomes  a  matter  of  sentiment, 
and  persons  begin  to  transfer  those  things  which  are 
most  precious  to  them  here  —  the  heart's  undying  treas- 
ures—  to  that  vital  heaven  which  every  man  must 
make  for  himself.  By  and  by,  when  persons  sink 
under  the  burdens  of  life,  and  their  powers, begin  to 
fail,  and  God's  love  takes  on  the  form  of  discipline, 
and  the  yoke  galls  their  neck,  they  begin  to  feel  their 
scholarship;  they  begin  to  realize  that  they  are  the 
disciples  of  the  Sufferer;  that  through  suffering  they, 
are  to  attain  glory  and  immortality."  Suffering  begins 
to  interpret  to  them  the  heavenly  kingdom. 

0,  what  a  dry  and  arid  place  it  has  been  to  many 
and  many  a  one  until  God  struck  the  soul  through 
father,  through  mother,  through  some  brother  or  some 
sister!  Then  heaven  grew  populous  to  them,  as  it 
grows  populous  to  you,  as  you  send  there  one  and 
another  that  you  have  loved. 

0,  how  many  times  have  men  —  great,  strong,  stal- 
wart men  —  come  to  the  gate,  and  found  it  fastened  by 
a  stone  which  they  could  not  roll  away  themselves, 
and  which  nobody  could  roll  away  for  them,  until  a 
little  child  from  out  of  the  cradle,  with  its  feeble 
hands  was  strong  enough  to  roll  it  away,  and  open  the 


320 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


gate,  and  let  them  look  into  heaven  !  How  many  men 
have  looked  in  to  find  their  children,  and  beheld  for 
the  first  time  the  light  and  glory  of  the  other  life  ! 

Christian  friends,  I,  who  have  sent  five  dear  ones 
there,  have  come  to  realize  the  truth  of  the  words,  "  A 
child  shall  lead  them."  My  departed  children  have 
led  me  to  them. 

And  so  we  build  heaven  out  of  our  joys,  out  of  our 
sufferings,  out  of  our  griefs,  out  of  our  experiences, 
taking  the  best  and  noblest  things,  and  arranging  them 
so  that  they  shall  fill  the  imagination,  and  by  the 
imagination  warm  the  heart,  and  by  the  heart  illumine 
the  understanding.  Thus  we  construct  our  heaven  to 
suit  our  personality,  always  bearing  in  mind  that  what 
we  imagine  is  but  the  seed-form  of  what  the  reality 
shall  be.  We  know  that  our  conceptions  of  heaven 
come  short  of  what  it  actually  is.  We  know  that  it 
shall  be  better  than  we  imagine  it  to  be.  We  know 
that  love  shall  be  grander,  that  joy  shall  be  more 
wondrous,  and  that  worship  shall  be  more  transcend- 
ent, than  anything  that  we  think  of.  It  is  true,  as 
the  Apostle  said,  to  whom  these  things  had  been  re- 
vealed, that  eye  hath  not  seen,  that  ear  hath  not  heard, 
and  that  it  hath  not  entered  into  the  heart  of  man  to 
conceive,  the  things  which  God  hath  reserved  for  those 
that  love  him.  To  stand  in  the  presence  of  God,  to 
love  God  as  I  love  my  friends,  to  be  as  familiar  with 
him  as  I  am  with  them,  and  to  talk  with  him,  —  these 
are  things  which  cannot  be  comprehended  by  us  in 
this  world. 

I  walk  with  men  of  science,  and  am  associated  with 
them  ;  but  is  not  God  the  greatest  Scientist  ?    I  listen 


LIFE  AND  IMMORTALITY. 


321 


to  men  of  transcendent  eloquence ;  but  is  not  he  the 
greatest  Speaker  ?  I  behold  with  delight  the  works  of 
superior  artists ;  but  is  not  he  the  primal  Artist,  and 
the  grandest  ?  Who  is  there  among  his  infinite  crea- 
tures than  whom  he  does  not  stand  infinitely  larger  in 
power  and  wisdom  and  glory  ?  And  I  am  his ;  he  is 
mine ;  and  there  shall  be  a  familiarity  in  my  intercourse 
with  him  which  you  cannot  take  away  from  love. 
Such  is  my  heaven. 

A  CONTINUOUS  SENSE  OF  THE  INFINITE. 

Now,  in  your  ministration  you  should  deal  largely 
with  this  great  realm  of  the  invisible,  of  the  infinite, 
of  the  illimitable,  and  of  the  absolute.  Thepe  are  the 
elements  which  a  man  needs  to  take  him  farthest  away 
from  the  limitations  and  narrowness  to  which  he  is 
subject  by  reason  of  his  animal  nature.  You  are  born 
animals  with  an  undeveloped  spirit;  and  what  you 
need  in  all  your  life  is  that  which  shall  carry  up  the 
higher  part  of  your  nature,  and  make  it  more  and  more 
floriferous,  more  and  more  beautiful.  This  is  done  by 
opening  the  whole  upper  air  and  realm  to  your  interior 
being.  And  as  it  is  with  you,  so  it  must  be  with  your 
people. 

While,  then,  you  preach  topically  on  the  subject  of 
heaven  or  of  hell ;  while  you  preach  formal  and  stated 
sermons  in  respect  to  the  great  hereafter,  —  the  great 
above-all  and  around-all  and  under-all,  —  there  ought 
to  be  something  more  than  that.  Preaching  the  glories 
of  the  other  life  should  form,  constantly,  a  part  of  your 
ministry ;  but,  besides,  you  should  be  so  full  of  it  that 
wherever  you  go  you  shall  carry  with  you  unconsciously 
14*  u 


322 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


the  breath  of  the  other  world.  I  know  that  a  man 
has  been  through  my  garden  if  he  walks  from  it  into 
my  house,  by  the  smell  of  his  raiment,  although  I  have 
not  seen  him  there,  and  have  not  been  told  that  he  has 
been  there.  I  can  tell  what  part  of  the  garden  he  has 
been  in.  I  know  my  heliotropes  ;  and  if  he  has  walked 
through  that  avenue  along  which  they  grow,  and  then 
has  come  into  my  presence,  he  brings  something  of 
their  fragrance  with  him,  and  I  discern  it. 

Now,  your  soul  should  dwell  in  those  higher  concep- 
tions and  loftier  realms  which  belong  to  the  other  life, 
so  that  there  should  be  the  smell  of  heaven  upon  your 
raiment,  if  I  may  so  say ;  so  that  those  who  come  in 
contact  with  you  shall  have  a  sense  of  the  infinite  life 
that  is  to  be  hereafter. 

In  the  lectures  which  I  have  given  you,  I  have,  with 
a  purpose,  emphasized  the  necessity  of  the  study  of 
mind,  of  mental  philosophy  in  its  living  and  practical 
forms.  I  have  dwelt  a  great  deal  in  analysis.  I  have 
spoken  many  things  to  show  you  how  to  preach  to  the 
human  mind.  But  now,  your  special  danger  will  be 
that  you  will  become  mere  analysts  of  worldly  things ; 
that  you  will  become  specialists  in  morality  and  in 
ethics. 

There  was  a  right  good  reason  why  the  old  preachers 
were  afraid  to  preach  morals :  not  that  they  are  of  no 
value ;  but  that  a  man  who  gives  himself  largely  to 
preaching  moral  and  ethical  relations  is  apt  to  lose 
that  scope  and  power  which  comes  from  those  relations 
which  are  broader  and  higher.  Abiding  in  the  infinite 
and  eternal  prepares  one  to  bring  to  his  task  of  preach- 
iug  something  more  than  9,rialytical  power  and,  secular 


LIFE  AND  IMMORTALITY. 


323 


narrowness.  If  you  live  much  in  the  realm  of  the 
spiritual,  you  have  the  counterpoise  of  that  part  of 
your  mind  which  allies  you  to  the  physical  and  mate- 
rial. You  will  need  to  have  the  spirit  of  Christ  abiding 
in  your  souls  in  order  that  you  may  be  what  you  were 
ordained  to  be,  consolers  and  comforters. 

THE  JOY  OF  BRINGING  COMFORT. 

My  dear  friends,  I  hope  to  have  an  inheritance  in 
heaven,  —  but  not  as  pay  for  what  I  have  done  in  this 
world.  I  have  had  my  pay  as  I  have  gone  along.  It 
has  not  been  in  any  sense  of  complacency  as  to  elo- 
quence, or  orthodoxy,  or  anything  of  that  sort ;  it  has 
been  that  God,  in  his  providence,  gave  me  a  tempera- 
ment and  a  training  which  led  me  to  inspire  men 
with  courage,  with  hope,  and  with  consolation;  and 
I  have  been  blessed  to  an  unusual  extent  as  a  com- 
forter. There  is  nothing  sweeter  to  me,  in  this  world, 
than  to  meet  one  and  another,  as  I  do  continually, 
who  say, "  I  never  could  have  gone  through  my  busi- 
ness troubles,  Mr.  Beecher,  but  for  your  comforting 
preaching";  or,  ''When  sorrow  came  into  my  house- 
hold, my  heart  was  broken ;  and  I  owe  it  to  you  that 
I  was  lifted,  as  by  the  voice  of  angels,  into  a  realm 
of  peace."  I  do  not  care  so  much  for  praises, — 
provided  I  have  them;  I  do  not  care  so  much  for  the 
approbation  of  men,  —  though  that  is  a  great  deal ;  but 
the  sense  that  God  has  enabled  me  to  help  a  soul  in 
its  extremity,  to  find  men  in  their  Gethsemanes  and 
comfort  them,  —  this  I  care  a  great  deal  for.  If  I 
should  die  to-morrow,  you  could  not  take  it  from  me. 
I  have  lived,  and  what  I  have  done  will  stand.    I  have 


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LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


lived ;  and  whether  my  future  should  be  in  heaven  or 
in  hell,  the  fact  that  I  have  been  an  instrument  of 
comfort  and  upbuilding  to  men  cannot  be  obliterated. 
I  have  my  reward  for  that  in  the  joy  which  comes 
from  the  consciousness  that  I  have  been  permitted  to 
carry  the  balm  of  consolation  to  those  who  were  in 
trouble.    You  cannot  stop  up  a  perennial  fountain. 

Now,  you  must  preach  so  that  men  who  are  under 
burdens  and  cares  shall  from  your  preaching  derive 
stimulus  and  hope,  by  which  they  are  helped  to  go 
through  their  various  appointed  allotments,  so  that 
when  they  come  to  trouble  they  will  think  of  you ;  so 
that  when  they  come  to  anguishful  experiences  you 
shall  be  one  who  can  give  an  upward  direction  to  their 
minds,  whereby  they  shall  seek  outside  of  themselves 
for  their  sources  of  strength  and  support.  The  general 
drift  and  tendency  of  your  preaching  should  be  such 
as  to  lead  men  to  the  fountain  of  comfort,  in  the  bosom 
of  the  Great  Infinite.  Earth  does  not  grow  the  herb 
of  consolation.  It  is  a  heavenly  plant.  It  blooms 
near  the  Throne.  It  is  a  part  of  the  tree  of  life  whose 
leaves  are  for  the  healing  of  nations. 

THE  preacher's  REFUGE. 

And  you  will  need  these  views,  dear  brethren,  for 
your  own  sake  as  well  as  for  your  people,  —  although 
the  ministry  is  the  noblest  profession.  To  be  a  minis- 
ter of  the  gospel,  in  the  true  sense  of  the  term,  is  to  be 
a  laborer  in  the  most  glorious  sphere  on  earth.  And 
I  think  it  unworthy  for  ministers  to  talk  about  their 
cares  and  anxieties  and  burdens  and  responsibilities. 
Ministers  do  not  have  as  many  cares  and  anxieties  as 


LIFE  AND  IMMORTALITY. 


325 


lawyers  and  doctors  who  are  worthy  of  their  professions. 
The  ministry  is  one  of  the  cleanest  of  horticultural 
professions.  Men  in  the  ministry  deal  with  dirt,  to  be 
sure;  but  it  is  dirt  that  brings  out  flowers  all  the 
while. 

And  yet  you  will  often  find  the  need  of  supernal 
comfort  in  your  life-work.  Sometimes,  in  the  discharge 
of  your  duties,  you  will  find  that  virtue  has  gone  out 
of  you,  when  you  are  obliged,  by  your  sympathy,  to 
take  one  soul  and  another  and  carry  them  over  the 
flood.  It  will  excite  and  exhaust  you.  And  you  will 
often  be  depressed  by  the  sense  of  being  fruitless.  And 
you  will  sometimes  be  obliged  to  stop  in  the  way,  from 
sickness  or  weakness,  when  your  soul  is  full  of  zeal, 
and  see  others  pass  by  you  in  the  race. 

I  have  seen,  among  a  cluster  of  boys  that  were  all 
exhilaration  and  power,  a  little  crippled  boy,  standing 
and  looking  on  wistfully  amidst  the  whirl  and  excite- 
ment about  him. 

So,  sometimes,  you  will  stand  and  witness  the  power 
and  victory  of  others,  and  feel  pain  that  by  reason  of 
weakness  you  are  deprived  of  the  privilege  of  joining 
in  the  struggle.  And  there  will  be  a  thousand  trials, 
of  bodily  strength,  of  mental  strain,  of  perplexities  and 
discouragements  and  failures  and  temptations  and  be- 
reavements,—  not  only  the  ordinary  lot  of  man,  but 
trials  peculiar  to  your  profession  and  your  work.  You 
will  have  enough  to  trouble  you  in  one  way  and 
another. 

And  let  me  tell  you,  fly  up  !  Do  not  stay  down 
here  where  troubles  dwell.  Go  above  the  dust  that 
rises  from  the  ground,  and  above  the  thunder  of  earthly 


326 


LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


noises.  Betake  yourselves  to  the  realm  of  eternal 
peace,  to  the  refuge  of  God's  heart,  to  the  love  of 
Christ's  bosom,  to  the  apartment  of  God's  house  which 
the  Saviour  went  before  to  prepare  for  you.  Escape 
from  your  troubles  to  your  eternal  home.  Do  not 
whine.  Do  not  complain.  Do  not  even  think  com- 
plaint. For,  by  sorrow  and  trouble  God  is  preparing 
you  for  power  and  influence.  And  many  of  you  with 
feeble  tongue  will  have  an  abler  administration  here- 
after than  you  have  here.  Many  of  you  with  feeble 
hands  will  hold  a  scepter  that  you  cannot  now  hold. 

Live  for  the  other  life.  Endure  as  seeing  Him  who 
is  invisible ;  work  by  faith ;  work  by  hope ;  work  by 
love ;  work  by  courage ;  work  by  trust ;  work  by  the 
sweet  side  of  your  mind ;  and  so,  be  like  Christ,  until 
you  dwell  with  him. 


END  OF  VOLUME  III. 


UNIVERSITY  OF  ILLIN0I9-URBANA 


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